Not catching the slightest hint of Eini's true meaning, Shiba stood up and decided to introduce Gregor to her.
"Eini, this is Gregor. I accepted him as my first disciple."
Gregor had gone quite far, so he didn't hear Shiba's words, but he noticed that Shiba was making signs to him to come near, so he did it.
"Nice to meet you. I am Gregor."
Gregor politely bowed in front of Eini. He was used to feigning being inferior to others, so it was easy for him to act like that. Of course, that time, he really felt respect, not like when he was in the forest.
"Nice to meet you. I hope Shiba managed to teach you properly. He is a good guy, but he isn't very good at teaching others."
Eini spoke with a smile, but she was hoping that Gregor would leave soon. She knew that Gregor would just delay them if he tagged together, and Eini wanted to be alone with Shiba.
"Master did a great job. He fulfilled my wish to see the outside world and taught me enough to survive."
Those were Gregor's honest feelings, but he knew that his time with Shiba finished since the instant he saw Eini hugging Shiba. He didn't want to be the third wheel of their relationship.
"Glad that you know to appreciate it. What are you planning to do now?"
Eini didn't give time to Shiba to say something before continuing the conversation.
"I want to explore the world as much as I can, so I will be leaving. I am sure you two have your own plans, and I don't want to be a bother."
Eini nodded in approval when she heard Gregor's words.
"That would be a great experience for you."
Shiba wanted to say something too, but after hearing Eini speak, he decided to remain silent.
He felt that it was too early to let Gregor go alone, but they had already lost a lot of time, and since Gregor couldn't fly, he would slow them too much.
Moreover, he wouldn't be able to join the academy anyway, so letting him go on his own was the best option.
"Master. I know it hasn't been for long, but it has been a pleasure to follow your teachings. Next time we meet, I will have grown strong enough to not disappoint you."
Gregor knew that his growth had a hard limit, but he still hoped to at least reach it.
Moreover, he still had the wish that the fate curse could be broken so he could become even stronger.
"Alright. It is good for you to live your own life. Sheltered, you won't be able to grow properly. Be careful when traveling. There is a lot of bad people in the world. Take some food, water, and money. It should be enough for a while."
As reluctant as Shiba was due to Gregor's lack of strength, he knew that Gregor leaving was the best. Shiba was even weaker when he went on his own, and even Eini, despite being extremely well prepared, was left on the planet while being at a lower level than Gregor.
Although he didn't give Gregor that much food, water, and money since Gregor would need to carry it himself, it should be enough for at least a year if he used the money wisely and remained in town.
After all, in big cities, everything was far more expensive. The money was enough to buy a lot of things in towns, but in a big city, it would be exhausted quite quickly.
"Thank you, master. I will be careful. Farewell!"
Gregor decided that it was best to leave quickly, or he might lack resolve to do it.
He was a bit scared, but that was overshadowed by his excitement to experience the outside world by himself.
Shiba saw his disciple leave alone and couldn't help but have a sad expression on his face.
"Don't be so worried. You taught him, so he should be able to live well on his own. He won't become strong if you protect him from all danger."
Eini could guess what Shiba was feeling, but what she said was the truth. One needed to gain experience in life to improve greatly.
Shiba wouldn't have reached level 8 if it weren't for all his experiences. Someone who never faced any hardship would be mentally weak, which would greatly affect the training speed and battle prowess.
"I know, but that is why I am worried. Did I really teach him properly? I know that I am not that good at teaching."
He would feel really bad if Gregor were to die due to his teachings being lacking.
"He was the one who asked you to become his master, right? You don't have the confidence to ask someone to become your disciple. He was the one who asked you, so he believed that you were able to teach him well. He took his own decisions, and he would bear the responsibility of them. If something happens to him, it would be his fault, not yours. Still, you should probably avenge them if something were to happen as long as you can do it, and it wasn't Gregor's fault."
From Eini's point of view, it wasn't good to meddle with the life of a disciple, but if a disciple died, it was still the master's responsibility to avenge it unless the disciple provoked his own death due to being foolish.
If a disciple offended a powerful person due to greed, it wouldn't be proper to avenge that disciple.
Moreover, Shiba wasn't really that much strong than Gregor. If Gregor died in front of someone far stronger than him, he wouldn't be able to avenge him anyway.
"You are so harsh, but you are also right. I hope everything goes well for him. Let's go. We still need to reach the academy."
Once Shiba spoke, they started to fly towards the academy. Shiba had less than two years left to reach Rank 1, and although his progress wasn't that bad, he didn't want to be overconfident since he wasn't like Eini that could advance at any second if she wanted.
A couple of days later, Shiba and Eini saw the academy. They were still at some distance, but form the sky, they could see it.
The fact that the academy had several high towers made it quite easy to see from far.
Although it was an academy, it looked more like a fortress or a castle since it was built thinking about being safe enough in case of war.
At the same time, Gregor had reached a small town.
That was his first time seeing a town on the outside.
He had almost exhausted the food that Shiba gave him since he only had for a couple of days. Without a spatial ring, the food wouldn't last too long without being properly conserved, and the food Shiba had wasn't prepared for that at all since he always used the spatial ring.
However, Shiba calculated the time Gregor could need to reach a town to buy food himself and gave him enough.
Although Shiba wasn't too confident in his geography knowledge. Towns weren't more than a couple of days from each other since they left the area on the border. In the worst case, it wouldn't need more than a week on walking.
Of course, that also counted very small towns that mostly served as places to rest for merchants, but those places still had food to buy since merchants went there constantly.
As Shiba expected, it wasn't hard for Gregor to find a town in a couple of days.
There were many towns near the Forest of Illusions since there were a lot of people who chose to go around it, especially merchants.
The town was a mall one and lived from the merchants that went through there. It was built for that purpose since merchants liked to have places to stay instead of always camping outside.
The prices were quite low, considering the money Shiba had given Gregor, but the prices were quite the standard for merchants, and merchants weren't among the poorest people.
It was just that Shiba and Eini had made so much money that the small quantity Shiba gave Gregor was enough to be considered wealthy even among merchants.
Still, Gregor didn't try to spend too much and only paid for the indispensable and rested that night before leaving the town.
However, that was enough to catch the eye on greedy people since Gregor wasn't good at hiding his wealth.
In fact, given how weak he was, even if he had far less, he would have been targeted anyway.
There were some people that feared that he would have some background when they heard how much money he had, so they stopped their thoughts, but not everyone had the same thought.
"All the wealth must be used for our goddess. She ordered it. Those were the words of the Supreme Priest, so they are the truth. He can't leave like this."
A man that seemed a beggar took of a contact device and sent the information about Gregor.
That man became a beggar after donating all his wealth to his goddess, he was originally a merchant that was betrayed by his best friend, but he continued reporting the wealth of everyone to the army of the goddess that was ready to collect everything for the sake of their goddess.
Those were pretty words to put it, but the truth was that they were just self-righteous bandits that plundered everything while justifying themselves using the goddess. Although they really gave a lot to the cult of the goddess, they still kept at least half of it for themselves.