After a quiet meal, Daniel put out the fire and began to load the wagon with everything he had found between dawn and Melissa's awakening. He gathered a few dozen bear berries, vegetables that were tasty and nutritious but not too demanding, and some vines that could be found at a height of 6-7 metres in the trees. Such vines had to be dried and treated with vegetable oil to make them as strong and strong as the ropes sold in the cities, but the quality required some experience. This was where Daniel's knowledge was at its best, for the carcass on the wagon weighed about 20 kilos, but the ropes never loosened their grip while he made the other preparations.
At one point a new cape appeared, which Daniel had made from rabbit fur. The cape itself was made of rabbit skin, but the fur on the top was attached with thinner twines than those used for the ropes, and the rabbit skin on the main part of the cape had been long worked with a dagger to remove all the fur, and then dried by the fire. At this point the boy took some of the charcoal from the extinguished fire to dye the rabbit's white fur black, for black was a less conspicuous colour in the night forest. Melissa had just walked in silence to the little stream near the camp to wash her face. When she came back, she stopped being silent and decided to find out what was waiting for them:
"Hey, where are we going next? Uncle Clantis must have been looking for me, and Mum was worried sick! I think we should go back to the camp," Melissa said excitedly, and then, thinking that her arguments were not good enough, she added, "I can't walk around in these rags anymore, and bathing in the stream is no fun, you can't wash yourself properly!"
" We had an agreement with the Herald and Uncle Clantis that in the event of any unforeseen circumstances, I would take you and your mother further into the forest and we would make it to the capital on our own." Daniel decided to lie and then said what they would do next, "So get ready to travel, we will reach the capital in a few days. It's much faster to travel without a group, as the main problem with such groups is carrying large supplies of food. If we find more Bear Berries, there will be no need for a meat wagon, so keep your eyes open, you've seen them before..."
Danielle summed up what they needed to do so that she wouldn't even think about lying. Especially since it was important for anyone in an unfamiliar place and situation for the first time to hear a rough plan of action. So Melissa didn't really think much about the first part of his words and just sighed in relief that the situation wasn't so hopeless.
But the words 'Uncle Clantis' confused her a little, as she hadn't seen Daniel and Clantis interact in any way before. It only took a moment for her mind to clear before she saw that Danielle had already started walking in the distance, pulling the cart.
"HEY, wait!" Melissa ran quickly after him.
"Hurry up, I don't want to waste time here, there's a lake 6 hours away and we need to find the next place to sleep quickly after your peaceful sleep until noon!" Daniel said grumpily.
"Is it my fault that I couldn't sleep for long because of an uncomfortable place to sleep?" Melissa blushed at such accusations and continued to be indignant, "You could have been more sympathetic?"
Daniel didn't reply, but thought
"TC, what kind of girl is she! She's not for you, she's not for you. She's annoying! I wish I hadn't scared her right after she ran away from the camp and watched her come back on her own!
Daniel was tired from lack of sleep and countless foraging trips. But more than that, he was tired of playing the role of leader of the group. He still didn't know what the right thing to do was, so to keep the little girl from panicking, he sketched out a route to the capital on his own. There were many disadvantages to leaving the girl alone and not getting enough sleep, but at least they wouldn't meet Ryan and his henchmen on the way. He could no longer see the Deep Worm in the distance and could only guess what it meant.
_____________
_____________
From above, the forest looked like a canvas of closely spaced green circles connected by a spindle of small green threads. But this canvas was cut in half by a long yellow line that ran across the entire mountain range from the town of Karol to the capital of the Water Mirror Empire. And in the middle of these green patches were blue spots of various sizes and shapes.
Next to one of these patches, two human figures could be seen as you looked down. The two people were a man and a teenage girl. The man was dragging a now half-empty cart behind him, from which he was pulling some of the meat carcass and making various baits along the way. To the girl
"How much longer? You said we'd reach the lake by tonight, but we still haven't, even though it's going to get dark in a few hours." Melissa complained all the way.
"If someone slept less they'd let me sleep too, but as it is I have to pull the wagon after not getting enough sleep! I only had time for an hour's nap after dawn, and then I have to forage for meat, berries and vegetables!"
"You might as well have woken me!"
"To listen to more of your reproaches! No thanks, I've had enough!"
"Hmpf," Melissa giggled as usual.
Daniel wasn't very talkative anyway, but she'd pestered him with questions about various plants and anything else that caught her eye. At first he liked to talk about everything, but after a few hours it became hell. And considering all the other stops she made when she saw various bugs, it was a wonder they were able to make any progress towards the capital at all.
"The lake!" Melissa saw the lake just as they emerged from the thicket. Her eyes glazed over at the source of water where they could finally wash up.
She turned to Daniel
" Go away for half an hour and watch me. I'm going to bathe and you don't look!" Melissa gave Daniel a threatening look and ran off towards the lake.
"Who cares about such a small thing!"
"Hmpf."
The guy was used to her constant sighs by now, but he was right about the insignificant thing, as Daniel was about 170 centimetres tall and Melissa only about 150.
Daniel simply set up the wagon and climbed into the tops of the trees to scout the surrounding forest for hostile animals, but there were none.
The lakes themselves were used as watering holes and places for the animals to wash. Such places were usually filled with harmless animals afraid to stray far from their habitat, so there was nothing threatening around Melissa's lake. Not all the animals were active at night and slept during the day. The opposite was true for animals that did not eat other creatures, but only ate plants, tree bark or other vegetation.