Dan read a book while Charlie did pushups. The kid struggled as he did not have lot of muscles. So far 30 minutes had passed and he had only managed to do 10 pushups. His brother on the other hand was still sleeping. If his elder brother could not do pushups then how would he, who was more frail than his brother do anything. He would have to wait for a while until he put on some weight.
Charlie was supposed to do 100 hundred push ups. The most important thing right now was that he build muscles. Then they would move on to normal endurance training and then the basics of Swordsmanship.
"Bang...bang...bang!" A loud knocking on the door was heard. Dan turned his attention from the book. The book that he was reading was heavy thick and dusty. One of the books he had stolen from the golden hill palace. The book he was reading was 'Tales from Asgard, King Loki the deceitful.'
"Who is it?" Dan asked as he walked over to the door with his finger in between his book.
"I'm sorry for disturbing you, but there is a man outside who wants you. He refuses to enter saying that it is filthy."
Dan thought about who it could be and his mind came to one conclusion. Pedro!
He opened the door and saw the waitress from last night. She was wearing clothes that Dan had never seen before. A green striped shirt and green striped trousers. What Dan found interesting was that the clothes was thin.
"Click...click...click." The girl snapped her fingers in front of Dan who was staring at her chest. "The guy is outside, deal with him. He's been creating a large fuss."
Dan went outside and didn't see anyone he knew. "What are you creating a fuss for?" Dan asked a short balding man wearing heavy armour.
"How did you know it was me?" Pedro asked.
"Your the only person without a scent. My sense of smell isn't that great compared to the other idiots back home but the only person without a scent I know is you. What did you want anyways?"
"Listen, we got to go."
"Why?"
"Do you remember the child you humiliated yesterday? Guess what, she's the princess of this country?"
Dan frowned and scratched his cheek. "Your joking right?"
"Nope, at first I didn't believe at first. I was like 'what is a princess doing on these filthy streets?' Turns out she came here to buy a slave." Pedro explained.
"So...does it look I care? She deserved whatever happened. I should have spanked her on the ass instead." Dan said.
Pedro let out a sigh, "Anyways, we got to go, I heard a rumour in the hotel I was staying in a-"
"What's a hotel, I don't think I have ever heard that word before." Dan rudely interrupted.
"It was an amazing place, I rang a bell and people would get me anything I wanted, I mean the maids at home did a better job but they had this thing called air-conditioning. It made the entire room cool. They even had these things called ice-cream. You should have-" As Pedro spoke happily explaining in detail Dan cut him of again.
"So what were you saying about us leaving?"
"That's not nice...There was some news about a hero that came last night to the city. Having seen the princess in such a sad state he was angry and swore revenge on whoever did this."
"How will he know it was us who beat the child?"
Pedro closed in on Dan and was barely a centimetre away from his face. "Who is us? Cause I don't remember just hitting children for no reason. I even warned you. But still it would be better if we stayed inside this country."
Dan frowned at Pedro. What he said did not make any sense. He came here to tell him to leave with him but now he was saying it would better to stay. "Why should we stay though? You just said that the hero would be coming for us?"
"True I did say that, The hero probably has access to the country's resources and the princesses full support but they are not the true danger." Pedro said.
"Explain."
"Do you know anything about how people are tracked in our country? The Demonic intelligence service track people using the innate magic signature of everyone. It has limited area." Pedro explained. Dan listened carefully to Pedro's explanation before speaking.
"If we are being tracked then should we not keep moving?"
"Normally yes, but remember that little charm that I performed on you before we left? It destroyed your magic signature and your scent. So our trackers will think that we are out of their reach in some far away land. The more we keep moving forward the bigger the risk that we run into the people who are tracking us. Therefore it would be better if we stayed in this country and don't move too far. At least for a few months."
Dan seemed to get the gist of what Pedro was saying. 'Let's Keep our heads down and stay out of trouble for a while.' To Dan it was a small price to pay if he could have his own freedom and not see his overbearing family.
"Fine then let's go later in the afternoon, I'm sure we could reach the nearest city within two days." Dan said.
Pedro shook his head. "We're joining a caravan. It draws less attention than two guys and a dog walking all the way to another city within two days. I'll go book us two seats on a caravan that leaves this afternoon."
"Make it four seats," Dan said "I'll explain later." he quickly added after Pedro's confused look.
Dan watched as Pedro shrugged his shoulders and walked of. He looked up at the clear morning sky and walked back inside.
"Why is it that I did not die?" Dan said out loud. "My health went below zero several times. I thought that I would die as soon as it hit zero."
➡️Your health stat is just to show what shape your body is in. Your health is stated in a numerical manner so even if it drops below zero, you will not die, it is just showing how much damage your body is in.
Dan sighed and went back inside. He usually did not like reading books like Pedro but this book he was reading was just amazing. He wanted to sit back down and get back to reading it.
When he went back in to the room the younger brother had woken up.
"How are you feeling Adam?" Dan asked. The kid smiled at Dan with a childish innocent smile. "I'm good. Thank you for everything that you done for me and my brother." the child still had a weak sickly voice. Of course it would not just disappear just from one night's sleep.
"Good, did your brother explain everything to you?" Adam nodded. Dan sat down on the wooden chair to continue reading his book. It was a normal sunny day outside. Charlie was continuing with his pushups. Dan decided to take them shopping Later on.