Simon didn’t have paper to dot his journey. Instead, he used a stick to dot his time. As near as he could tell, he was going to the south-west. Every day that he made goress got a big notch, and every day that he made slress got a small one as he tried to go as straight a line as possible. He made thin lihrough the days when he had to cross rivers but gave up just before he started a system to try to estimate grade and elevation. It simply wasn’t worth it.

  After all, he didn’t o know the best way over these mountains. This wasn’t a route he expected to take often. He just had to find the closest pce he was familiar with and call it a day. Ohat was done, he would be out of reasons to procrastinate, and he could get baore important things.

  It took three days to reach the ridge of the mountain in a low pce, and as much as he wao try summiting it, he was forced to aowledge that he simply wasn’t in the right shape for it right now. Simoally added that to his bucket list as he made his way dowher side.

  On the way down, he found a boulder that afforded him a view of the valley. Though he still had a long way to gh the pirees and almost certainly a few more cold nights in his bedroll, he could see a river, and beyond it, he could see the thin brown line of a road, whistantly became his new goal.

  Simon didn’t sleep well in the nights that followed because he heard the distant screech of what he thought was an owlbear somewhere in the woods. The cries were enough to make him worry, but the thing never actually found him. Instead, he reached the river with nothing but a growing hunger and spent half a day casting into the water a very primitive fishing pole to solve that problem despite his aversion to fish.

  He wao cross it, but the thing was raging, and he’d have to go somewhere up or down river to find a better spot to ford it. While he sat there catg fat trout that he wasirely sure that he wao eat, he saw a man with a pair of horses leading a wagon down the muddy road.

  Simon would have loved to ask the man for dires, but given the noise of the river betweehat was impossible. Instead, Simon merely waved while the man looked at him strangely.

  “Probably not a lot of random fishermen just hanging out in fantasy nd,” he nodded.

  That afternoon, Simon ate well, ae the fshbacks that the smoky fish gave him to the beach at Ionar, he ehe white, fky flesh aantly took seafood off of his ‘never eat again’ list. Then he moved far from the smells of food before making camp for the night in case the owlbear showed up.

  The following day, it took hours to find a good pce to cross the river, aill almost went for a swim more than on the slick stones of the shallow se. Things were better after that, aed to ght when he reached the road on the fire shore. However, even with all the time that it took, he still wasirely dry by the time he caught up with that wagon hours ter.

  He never should have caught up to it, of course, not at his walking speed. But the thing's rear wheels had been sucked deep into the muck, and the man seemed uo free himself.

  “I don’t have much,” the man said wheiced him. “I’m just on my way back to the vilge and don’t want no trouble.” Given how nervous he was, he obviously thought that Simon was a bandit when he approached, but Simon just waved off the man’s s with a smile.

  “It’s cool,” Simon assured him. “Everything is cool. Let’s just get you unstuck from the mud. We’ll do this on three.”

  That’s almost all it took. A few hard shoves and the thing was free and clear in a few minutes. What had been a man stuck for hours was ended with only the mi of interventions. It was enough to make him think about all the little nudges he’d been giving history with Heledes’ help.

  After that, the man offered Simon a lift, and he gdly took it. Just because he he exercise didn’t mean he wanted more, and he’d already been walking for days. “I appreciate the help,” the Mert told him. “The name is Ennis, by the way, and I’m sorry I got the wrong idea. I just… well, you don’t see many men around here with a sword on their hip uhey mean to use it.”

  “Who says I don’t mean to use it?” Simon said with a ugh. “I just hunt goblins and the like for . There’s o be a brigand when there are so many other ways to make money.”

  “Aye,” the man agreed. “Maybe you could take time out of your day to teach the rest of the highwaymen that. They’re worse thahis year. I had to pay three tolls just to get this far if you believe it.”

  Simohe man gripe about the area and slowly began to flesh out the area that he was in.

  It turned out that he was in the mountainous Kingdom of Charia, which was to the east of the Kingdoms of Brin and Montain. Though he’d spent more time ier, this pce didn’t feel so terribly different. The mountains in the distance seemed a little taller, and the man’s at was a touch thicker, but it all still felt familiar enough. That meant that the big city to him was Adonan, which meant he was somewhere he werewolf level and the level where a certain masquerade party went horribly wrong.

  It was iing. He didn’t have his map in front of him, and if he had a mirror, he wouldn’t have taken a look with the skittish mert looking over his shoulder. Still, it felt like he was sort of in the middle of three tries. He hadn’t quite figured out their size, but he could imagine himself being somewhere he ter of France, Germany, and Spain, or whatever try it was that was south of Germany. Until very retly, he’d had zero i in geography.

  Now, he didn’t have a choice. It would also seem that he didn’t have a choi dealing with Bandits because after they turned a er, Simon could see three men loafing by the roadside who were obviously up to no good.

  “See what I mean,” Ennis sighed. “How’s a man supposed to make a living when everyone wants a cut.”

  “Them?” Simon smirked. “You leave them to me.”

  He waited until they got close and began their spiel about moo proted maintain the road when Simon stood up and said, “Sorry boys, I already hijacked this wagon. You go a your own.”

  “You… what?” the talker said. “Liste a cut of every cart that es through here, I don’t care who owns it. The boss says that—”

  “Well, then I shouldn’t be talking to you then, should I. I should be talking to your boss. Get him out here.”

  “Your funeral,” the weaselly man smirked before yelling, “Boss! We got trouble!”

  The man that came out of the underbrush was a head taller than Simon, and every inch of him, from his scowling face to his bulging girth, said he was nothing but a brute and a bully. Truthfully, he’d been pnning on solving this as peacefully as possible with a little intimidation, but he could see that any attempts at that would be impossible.

  So, he didn’t bother to try. Instead, despite the smirk oher man’s face, Simon said, “You’ve got about three seds to get yoons out of my fad let us on your way, or there’s going to be real trouble here.”

  “Trouble?” The man ughed, casually holding a bastard sword that probably weighed twice what Simon’s did. “What the hells do you think you’re on about. You’re the one who’s—”

  Simon didn’t even wait for the man to finish. Instead, he drew his sword and brought it down hard in an exaggerated overhand chop that gave the man all the time in the world to get his sword up to block. It was a terrible move. It would put Simon off bance, and even as he recovered, the bigger man’s sword would e dorobably take a head or an arm if he was any good.

  That’s what should have happened, of course. Instead, Simon muttered, “Oo,” just before he struck, sending a line of pure force through the man like a spectral guillotihe result was ematic if nothing else.

  All of the onlookers saw the two swords strike each other before Simon split the man in two, from stem to stern. That wasn’t what happehough. In truth, the man had already been split apart before that ever happened and fell apart into two halves. It was a messy thing and not at all how he wa to go, but it wasn’t like he had a choibsp;

  The result was shod fear. Even the horses made shrill noises of displeasure, and Ennis had tle them in.

  “So are you going to let us by now, or are more people going to have to die,” Simon said in an aone as he flicked the blood from his bde.

  He might be ag fident, but he was nervous as hell. If all these people drew on him, he was going to need fire htning to keep Ennis from getting killed in the ensuing fight, and then he’d be a warlock to everyohe man talked to forever more.

  That isn’t what happehough. Instead, Simon took out the biggest dude, and everyone else freaked out. A couple looked at each other, trying to gauge the amount of support they might have if they attacked Simon, but as soon as the first man turned and ran, most of the rest of them soon followed, leaving him the wagon and a bisected corpse all alone on the road.

  Simon sighed. “I’m sorry you had to see that; things get ugly sometimes out here.”

  The mert nodded mutely as Simed both sides of the body off the road by the man’s boots and helped himself to the bandit leader’s purse. They were a few miles down the road when Ennis finally asked, “So, are you hijag me then? Are you really going to—”

  “What?” Simon blurted out in surprise. “No. I was just trying to bluff my ast without bloodshed. That’s all.”

  “You seem pretty good at bloodshed to me,” the mert said quietly.

  Simon nodded but said nothing. Truthfully, he was too good at bloodshed and wished he was better at solving situations like that without res to violence. However, if he had to choose between an i man and a bad man, the bad man was going dowime.

  The two of them rode together for two days, and when they reached the vilge, Ennis waited for Simon to leave the wagon to see about buying supplies before the man took off as quick as he could. By the time Simourned with a loaf of bread to share for lunch, Ennis was half a mile down the road.

  “Yeah, that’s fair,” Simon said, w what he should do now.