After weeks of sleeping in dungeons, not to mention the mad dash we had to do yesterday, resting the night away in the cave was quite easy. Everyone was exhausted, so we slept deeply. With the cave shut off, we were actually a lot safer than we were even outside. Come the morning, I opened a portal back to the road leading to the Capital. On the road, Carmine rejected my offer to escort her back to the Capital.
"If I stayed with you, it may cause more trouble with the Bandit King," Carmine admitted. "I have a method to travel back to the Capital quickly. I would take you with me, but it regrettably only works on one person."
"That's fine. I'd rather walk anyway." I said.
I wasn't just trying to be nice. I wanted to fill out as much of my map as possible. If she had some way to teleport straight to the Capital, then my map would just have a sudden jump to the Capital. I didn't say that I felt like every spot should be fleshed out like that, but since Chalm was becoming a bit of a home for me, a completed path on my map was the least I could do.
There was a second reason too. I wanted to be seen heading for the Capital. If I just disappeared, there is a chance that the Bandit King might start looking around and eventually set her eyes on Chalm. If she sees me heading towards the Capital, it should help them ignore Chalm.
Like that, Carmine and I split up, and I began to travel to the Capital with four slaves now. It turned out that Terra as a golem didn't actually sleep. Living up to her name as Guardian, she could stand watch all night without an issue. At first, I didn't like the idea, but we still set the alarms just in case and so I slept. A week passed and we continued on the path unperturbed by the Bandit King. Perhaps, having lost all of her best, she was worried about having a confrontation with me. Perhaps, she was just uninterested in us now that Carmine was no longer with us.
We came upon a nice-looking hot spring along the way about halfway through the day. I used a variety of spells on the spring to make sure it was clean for us to bath in. As I got the bath ready, I sent the girls out to get wood for tonight, set up a camping area, and various other things. When I finished, I walked back to the camp to find it completely empty. I checked my map and found they were all fine, but strangely together near the edge of my Sense Life range.
I didn't know what all of the girls were doing together, but I shrugged and decided to take my bath first. I only just managed to get in when a snapping twig caused me to glanced towards the surface. To my surprise, Terra was standing at the edge of the water, but she was completely naked. She had her head down and a blush on her cheeks.
"What is going on?"
"Th-the other girls were talking and decided it was time that Master enjoyed me."
"Eh? Is that what you girls were talking about in private?"
"Yes… Master… it's time we have sex!"