"Wait a moment, Myrna." I call from aside. "They can't do anything right now."
"Huh? Ryuu?" she said, almost shivering. "I thought they have done something to you."
Now that the enemies are paralyzed, I can get near to them without needing to fear any tricks.
"I detected that someone used Magic a few moments ago and wanted to see whether they are friends and foe. For that I hid myself and wanted to see how they react, seeing you sleeping there. Sorry."
"It's.... fine." Myrna says. "You said you would protect me and I trust you."
Even though she says it, I still feel somewhat bad for my action, but now I have a clearer overview of her skills than before.
"Anyway, let's see what we have here."
I walk towards the three figures, who have their heads hidden under their hoods. One by one I push the hoods back and get a good view on their faces thanks to the evening sun.
"What have you done to us?" A man growls.
"You don't need to know," I reply without giving him any face.
It's a group of three man and they are all probably in their thirties or so. Since they are immobile, I take the chance to search through their pockets and bags.
"Can't see anything special," I mumble.
My heart is more at ease. I feared that they were sent after Myrna, but my fear is unfounded. Except from a bit money and some supplies I don't see anything.
"We will take your money and supplies as compensation for your little sneak attack..."
"You bastard!"
"Rat!"
I sigh. "You guys should let me finish my sentence first," I continue. "In exchange, we won't kill you off right away."
"What?" Myrna gasps. "But they tried to do bad things to us!"
"I know, and they see what they got out of this. Let's see whether they are able to learn or not. If not..."
I look straight into their leaders face.
"You guys should hope to not run into us again."
Having the message delivered, I take all their belongings and leave them behind, as I walk away with Myrna at my side.
"Is it okay?" she asks.
"Yes. I think my runes will be active till we reached a healthy distance. And if they come again, they will be facing something more terrible than paralysis."
"That's not what I meant," she whispers. "Is it okay to go on? Aren't you exhausted physically?"
"Oh that," I rub my head's back and smile.
Seems like she really cares about me which makes me happy.
"There's nothing I can do about it, anyway. So instead on wasting energy on complaining, I use it to go on."
It truly is exhausting, but thanks to the bandits we now might have enough money to enter Tovol without problems even if it means to walk into the night.
"You wouldn't have neglected me, would you?"
After an eternity of silence, Myrna brings that topic up as the first conversation starter.
"No. I wanted to see whether you also noticed them or not." I explain. "I know it wasn't nice but I wanted to be sure about our actual abilities. Now I know that you can detects presences."
"Uh-huh. That is part of my... origin."
Since the thiefs used appraisal and her and talked loudly about Myrna's origin, I know that she's a demi-human with fox origin. But as long as she doesn't talk about it herself I will continue to act as I never heard it.
"By the way... aren't your runes strangely powerful, Ryuu?"
"You think so, too?" I reply with a put on smile. "I guess they really aren't normal then."
The runes themselves are less of a reason for that than my rare skill. But for now I keep that a secret, at least till I can measure my abilities.
Suddenly Myrna comes closer and grabs my left arm with her hands, as we walk.
"You're other than those humans I met till now. I'm happy that we met."
"Well I can't compare you to anyone but it's not needed anyway. You seem like a nice person."
Though the bar has been set low when I think back to my summon. Half a day has past, but since I joined the world at midday, my first day in this new life is over.
Frightening, wild wolves, guards which were torn apart and an ambush by thiefs are definitely more than enough for starters and I can't help but joying for the time we get some rest.
"We're almost there!" I exclaim full of joy.
In the distant I can see some small lights which should be torches of the city wall. Myrna didn't lie when she said every city has a big wall. I bet it can even easily fend off ogres.
Myrna's only reply is some sounds which makes me looking at her. Her eyes are closed most of the time and it seems that she only manages to walk on by clinging to my arm.
'Only a few hundred metres and we're done.'
She may have great endurance, but to a girl our age, today's events must be tiring as well. After all you don't get into the situation of being sold off as a slave everyday.
The city gate looks quite empty, the guards aside.
Normally the city gate is crowded in games when you enter at noon, but it seems that this world doesn't have an active night life.
"Halt!" a guard shouts.
"State your name and business!"
They don't point their weapons towards us, not it's also not too relaxed.
"I'm sorry for causing trouble this late, but we're travelers who just escaped an ambush near the forest. Is it maybe possible to enter the city?"
"An ambush, huh?" the guard in front of us replies.
'Does he not believe me?'
"Yes. We barely managed to escape but luckily we made it. However, the escape was exhausting which is why she almost is asleep."
"Seems like you went through trouble. There are more and more ambushes these days. There's no problem letting you in after seeing your IDs."
"IDs?" I repeat. "I'm sorry but we are from a remote village and never heard anything about an ID. Is it possible to acquire one?"
It's not even a complete lie. I wouldn't consider my hometown a remote village, but my old life is remote enough to say, that I don't know about this world's ID system.
"That's possible yes. But it comes with an additional fee. Talking about money, do you have enough to pay the entry fee?"
I take the money which I collected from the thiefs and present it on my hand for the guards to see.
"Is this by chance enough for the entry fee and the IDs?"
"Yes." he says and grabs some coins. "Please enter and after that go straight right to the registration office. You may need to knock. And don't forget to inform the adventurer guild about the increasing occurrence of ambushes"
"Thank you for your help." I say and bow slightly.