"There were no other attacks." The next morning Rushdi came over to take a look at how Nick was doing, "Too bad about your friend, and, in fact, you don't look so good either."
"Would you believe me if I said that before we reach the next town, he will already walk and I won't have any injuries at all?" Nick grinned.
"Psychopaths." The vice caravan leader shook his head and went back. He was thankful to them, but these people kept making him uncomfortable.
"How did you do it?" After Rushdi left, YunYun came to Nick and finally asked the question that was bugging her all night and morning. He was a bit stronger and more agile than her, but no to this extent. Because of the size, her weapon would've been much more effective, but any time she visualized herself in that fight, she died in few minutes, sometimes even within a minute.
"No idea." Nick sighed, "All I remember is just a feeling, a feeling of seeing everything and everyone around me. Sometimes it even seemed as if I could predict their future moves and didn't have to think about anything. I could just act and every move felt proper and correct. Although I did get injured and badly at that, so I can't brag about it."
"What Qi technique did you perform during the fight?" She asked.
"I think … the third? I'm not sure." Nick shrugged.
"We are always practicing our physique." YunYun looked in his blue eyes, "But how can we practice our battle skills? I've heard about the state you were in, at least I believe so. Only the best Qi masters can train up to that level – it's called 'battle trance'. They can achieve this state at will and it enhances their abilities manyfold."
"Damn, I really don't want to fight." Nick sighed and shook his head.
She was at his side for over a month now and knew his disposition. But he could simply die someday if this continued. YunYun came from a long line of Qi sword masters herself and was clear about this.
"I think you are wrong." She smiled at him, but he could only hear her smiling. Her face was covered, similar to the rest of the girls. For some reason he missed her smile, pouting ... all those expressions.
YunYun pointed at Steven, "I believe you only keep telling yourself you don't want to fight or kill, but, in fact, want to get better at fighting to protect those close to you. And during the fight you, in fact, enjoyed the thrilling feeling and it scares you. Maybe in a way you are afraid to loose your humanity because of it. You want to increase your fighting capabilities and deep down you like the process, but you don't want to hurt others because of your good nature. On the surface these things contradict each other, at least you think so and that is tearing you apart from the inside."
"Aren't they contradicting? Isn't the person who kills others becoming more and more inhumane?" Nick listened to her lecture and got increasingly confused or upset – he wasn't sure himself.
"Of course, not." She had similar dialog with her mother a couple of years ago and it was an eyeopener. Now YunYun felt it was finally Nick's turn to have the 'talk', "You were held captive by the murderers of your family, right? Now think of how they acted on a regular day."
Nick fell deep in thoughts. The worst mass murderer of them all – the grand elder, not only was smart and sometimes emotional, in the end he even managed to 'fall in love' or whatever that thing could be called. If one didn't take into account the killings and tortures, he was 'very human'. In fact, he was a very interesting grandfather figure!
"The things you are afraid of are called character traits. And you simply don't have them, but if you fear them too much, think about them and focus on seeing in others, one day your consciousness might even get crippled in some way and you'll start to show such traits as well. What you have to do is to keep being yourself and fight against those 'bad people'. And the emphasis is on 'fight them' not 'fight within your conscience'. You can't grow while fighting within yourself, you'll only destroy everything there, just like the battlefield last night." YunYun sighed in the end.
They walked side by side for half an hour in silence.
"Thank you, YunYun! You're amazing!" Nick sighed, "Those words show that your emotional maturity is way above mine."
"Those are just some things that my mother told me." She was blushed all over, but thankfully no one could see it behind her head cover.
"She sounds like a wise woman, I'd like to meet her one day." Nick carelessly said without thinking.
"Of course, you will! It's a must before our wedding." YunYun confidently stated the 'obvious'.
"Khem," Her fiance coughed awkwardly and tried to change the subject, "Your mother is smart and as her daughter you're very smart as well, therefore you can simply inherit her words and they would become yours."
"Stop flattering me." She waved him off. It felt good when her fiance complimented her, but with so many people around it was almost too intimate even if they spoke in hushed voices, "You better think of how can we train to gain that 'battle trance' ability. It's said that a Qi master has to climb over mountains of corpses to achieve that, but with your attitude, even if you understood what I said, you'll never be able to achieve it. Just because you had a fluke yesterday, it doesn't mean you transformed into a great warrior. And even if we run on our hands all day long around the caravan, we will never be able to achieve it. I need a partner who can train my fighting skills or I'll get rusty!"
Nick could hear how she was trying to pout and almost laughed out loud imagining her face.
"Actually I do have an idea." After thinking for a bit Nick mysteriously said, "Let me work on this a bit and I'll create a training program to help us achieve that state. Unfortunately our hands are quite tied here, but as soon as we can train freely, I'm confident for both of us to achieve it in surprisingly short period of time."
YunYun looked at him in shock. She knew he was a maniac who loved to practice, but this was almost a legendary state they were talking about! Only few rare Qi masters could achieve it and Nick was certain to train and get results just like that?
But the she realized how this Qi practitioner was already capable of freely walking on water and scaling cliffs. In fact, if Nick claimed he was a Qi master, most people would immediately believe because it was more acceptable for a young genius to become a Qi master than to freely perform like he was one while still being only a Qi practitioner. And his training methods were also unique. Couple of days back when it was raining, she could already stand on a small puddle of water for a few seconds and she was confident that, if she continued to practice under his guidance, she would be able to run on water within a month! Maybe he really could do it?
As expected the beast attacks stopped and only now and then a random mountain lion tried to assault careless servants when they were walking along cliffs. Other than that the following days were peaceful.
Nick was confident in his and Steven's recovery because of the high quality medicine he was consuming, but he neglected the fact that he once was a heavy steroid user in the Holy Order. Whatever were those experiments the old freaks performed on him, they had increased his regenerative abilities to the point that most wounds on his body disappeared after a couple of days.
Nick was certain his detox program was successful and the royal doctor Sigismund Marbel confirmed it several times as well, therefore it came as a huge pleasant surprise that he could recover at such speed. The only thing he could hope for was that the mutations caused but the Holy Order didn't have heavy side effects and to lessen any possible problems that may come up he could only practice Qi more as it was the universal panacea for anything in the world.
Steven shocked the others as well. On the fifth day after getting injured he already managed to walk a bit on his own and the whole sixth he sat on the carriage practicing Qi. The convoy guards unanimously agreed that these seven were not completely human, but still tried to be as friendly as possible.
While Steven was already practicing Qi with intent to recover faster, the vice caravan leader came to visit again. After few pleasantries which felt too forced, Nick asked him to act as his usual self, otherwise people might think someone had replaced their respected leader.
Laughing awkwardly, Rushdi explained that even if there were no serious beast attacks, each night there was a sneak attack at the very tail of the caravan and few wolves managed to take a horse with them every single time. Since there was nothing much to do, last night two old Qi masters went to guard, but even they got cheated. This small pack seemed to be extremely cunning and not only they escaped, they scared the horses so hard that one of them broke free and in panic run into the woods. Of course, it stayed there for good as well. The worst part was that no one could really tell how many attackers there were, but on the other hand, the positive was that they never seriously injured any people.
Nick thought for a bit and promised to check it out, but asked for two Qi masters to guard their spot while he, Clayton and YunYun were away. Rushdi gladly agreed and quickly left almost as if afraid Nick would change his mind.
It was still a daytime and Nick went over to the caravan's tail to 'question witnesses', but couldn't find out anything helpful. Wolves came in at lightning speed, every time got a horse and then immediately left. To this day they lost four horses and the losses were not much, but it was extremely annoying, especially when the rest of the caravan enjoyed peaceful nights.
Nick consulted his friends, but they had no passable ideas, thus in the end they decided to take a look in the evening themselves.
Their arrival was celebrated with loud cheers. At this point everyone knew them and the fame of the 'Southern mercenary group' had spread all over the caravan. Nick bashfully waved everyone off and declined any alcohol offers. The three of them inspected surroundings without being able to notice anything special and when, as usual, the bonfires were lit, nothing happened for some time.
Only shortly after the midnight a terrifying howl shook the trees. The guards looked around in panic while merchants and servants instinctively pressed closer together. Nick looked at Clayton with a questioning gaze, but the latter shrugged. None of them were able to discern any attackers, but the sounds in the forest proved there were some present.
After few minutes of ferocious howling and growling, a shadow darted out of the woods towards a bigger horse but as soon as Clayton stood in its way, it immediately disappeared between the trees. This wolf was much smaller than those who fought Nick, in fact, these were the animals that should be described as real wolves, but those huge black beasts from before were simply monsters. Few seconds after Clayton sacred the wolf away, another attack was against a horse hundred or so meters away, but few guards managed to repel the attacker was well.
This harassment continued for almost an hour and the group of three multiple times came close to killing few of these wolves, but the beasts managed to escaped every time, although without getting their pray. While merchants regained their morale and hope, sneaky predators were not discouraged at all and after several minutes of break they howled for a while and then attacked again.