He had never hidden much of his worries from Fay. Stroking her back, he whispered, "Fay, if you're with me... will we truly receive Lord Raniel's blessing?"
"Silly." Fay gently bit the tip of his ear. "Do you like me?"
"Of course." Klein could answer without thinking - liking Fay had become an instinct flowing through his veins. If it weren't for the fact that Fay rarely used the word 'love,' he would definitely have often said that short phrase that human women loved to hear most.
Fay whispered in his ear with a blushing face: "You like me, and I like you, so aren't we already happy just being together? Lord Raniel is very busy blessing so many elves. Wouldn't it be better if we work hard for our own happiness?" She paused briefly before continuing, "Besides, the elves in town don't take the coming-of-age ceremony seriously anymore, and their lives are better than ours anyway, aren't they?"
Those elves who could live in stone houses built from the ground up and eat fresh fruits and vegetables sold by human merchants had always been the objects of Fay's envy. Her beloved cooking skills could hardly improve further in this wooden house up in the tree.
Klein let out a long breath and nodded.
Fay pushed him away, bent down to pick up the bow frame from the ground, and said with a smiling sigh, "You promised just this morning that you wouldn't touch any more wood from the house. Klein, you've lost all credibility when it comes to bows and books."
Klein shrugged helplessly - besides drawing a bow and shooting arrows, he had other exercises he could do. Fay had never trained in any combat abilities, and hadn't even learned how to use the basic magical powers that most living beings naturally possessed. She was purely a delicate woman who needed others' protection. This feeling of being depended upon perfectly compensated for the inferiority he felt from relying on Fay in their daily life.
The practice area was very far from their treehouse - measured by the standard units that humans had vigorously implemented across the continent, it was about two and a half miles in a straight line. In reality, since one would surely get lost in the forest without following certain paths, the actual journey was often much longer.
However, Klein had good reason to travel so far for practice.
There was a small pond there that wouldn't be wronged if called a mud pit. The surrounding clearing, roughly forty to fifty meters square, grew only weeds and wild vegetables. They first discovered this place because Fay needed to gather wild vegetables and medicinal herbs to exchange for money in town. In the Misty Forest, even in the outskirts, such clearings were rare. So whenever groups of adventurers entered from the eastern side, having learned about the paths through the border area beforehand, they would invariably make camp here on their first night.
During the three hundred and sixty days of the past 18 months, there were a few lucky occasions when Klein would find things left behind by adventurers while practicing. Although most were worthless trash, even bringing back an abandoned temporary tent was enough to make Fay happy for half a day.
It was nearly dusk. If anyone was going to make camp, they should have arrived by now. Through gaps in the leaves, he looked toward the flattest patch of grass near the pond. Due to frequent use by adventurers, there was already a designated fire pit there, along with a level area that could accommodate a tent for four or five people.
There was no campfire, no wooden stakes driven into the ground, and the air maintained its fresh scent. Klein sighed in slight disappointment as he emerged from the forest.
He hadn't brought his bow - what he called "practice" was really just basic intensive physical training. For tonight's coming-of-age ceremony, he hadn't planned to exhaust himself as usual to the point of having no strength left to run home. Instead, he just stood beside the giant ancient tree he normally used, raising one leg to do simple muscle stretches.
As Klein bent his head as far as he could toward his foot, his eyes suddenly caught something new - a mark.
"What's this?" Klein muttered to himself as he bent slightly to examine the pattern left at about chest height. It had been carved into the bark with a sharp, hard object. Judging from how the tree sap had congealed, whoever made this mark couldn't have left too long ago - at most half an hour earlier - just enough time to flip an hourglass once.
Strange, Klein scratched his head, wondering why someone passing through this place would choose to leave rather than make camp. He crouched down to examine the soil near the tree roots. Having traveled with adventure parties before, Klein quickly determined from the fresh footprints that whoever made this mark was no ordinary person. Common townspeople wouldn't wear these kinds of hard-tipped leather boots, much less venture randomly into such a forsaken place.
The footprint was divided into two parts - these were high-heeled boots that only women seeking height or elegant posture would wear. The heel area wasn't small, suggesting the wearer hadn't sacrificed much of the stability needed for quick movement.
In other words, if his guess wasn't wrong, whoever passed through this clearing was a petite woman. Judging from the boot style, she was most likely an elf, spirit-folk, or human. Among other races that might appear in the eastern town, giants never wore boots, dwarves and gnomes would throw anything height-related straight into the garbage, and as for the already rare Dark Kin, he'd only ever seen one in that town - a male.
The specific content of the pattern was a code that Klein couldn't quite understand, but he did understand the arrow. Following its direction into the forest, it wasn't long before he found the next mark.