Now that we’d each made our respective reports, the conversation came to an end.
We didn’t know yet how long exactly it would take for Ralph’s knee to fully heal, but since he’d be using healing potions, around a month seemed a reasonable estimate.
In that month’s time, I’d need to supervise Hester as we paired up on quests, make excursions to Patia Forest to gather more of my three favorite plants, and figure out where we’d be moving next.
As I got my things ready for tomorrow and climbed into bed, I braced myself for the chaotic month up ahead.
About three weeks had passed since Ralph and Hester had returned to Realzahd.
In the first couple weeks, I’d completed some location-specific quests with Hester and had finally reached the silver rank.
After a bit of supervision, Hester was now ready to tackle bronze-level quests on her own. So this whole week, I’d left her to it while I camped out in Patia Forest.
My plan was to gather as much lyzoff fruit as possible, just in case it didn’t grow in the vicinity of wherever we were going next.
That just left the most important factor: the status of Ralph’s knee.
“Chris! You’re finally back!”
When I returned to the Shangri La Hotel, carrying a giant backpack from my time in Patia Forest, I saw Ralph waiting outside for me. He ran up to greet me, full of energy.
That was enough to tell me that his recovery had gone even better than expected. He’d been able to do some light jogging before I’d even left for Patia Forest, and now he was running in earnest. His leg was clearly doing much better.
“I’m home. You’re in pretty high spirits, huh?” I replied.
“Of course I am! Check this out.” He jumped from side to side repeatedly, his movements incredibly speedy. “Fast, right? And it doesn’t even hurt a bit!”
He’d removed his splint. The wound still looked like it should have been pretty painful, but he claimed that he didn’t feel any pain at all.
I was legitimately glad that he’d made a full recovery, but it was kind of too bad that it had also made him even more obnoxious.
“That’s great. Now, I’d like to get back to our room, so maybe you can let me through,” I said.
“Aw, come on! Throw me a bone here, man! At least spar with me for a little bit. I’ve gotten so stiff from all this resting, and I’m itching to get moving again!”
“We can spar tomorrow, all right? I’m exhausted. And besides, if you’re knee’s all better, then I want to talk about our big move.”
At this, Ralph perked up.
“Did you finally pick a place?! Let’s hurry back to the room, then!” he said and immediately left me to go back inside the hotel.
Seeing him rush like that made a wildly inappropriate thought pop in my head:
Honestly, I kind of preferred the slower pace he used to take when he’d had a bad knee.
“Welcome back, Chris,” said Hester, when I returned to our room. “Ralph just told me that you’ve made a decision about where we’re going to be moving. Is that true?”
“Yeah. I made up my mind while I was at my camping spot. You know Norfast, one of the three major cities in the kingdom?”
“What?! We’re moving to Norfast?!”
“Not quite. We’re moving to Oxstar, one of its satellite towns.”
“Wait... So we’re not moving to Norfast?”
“I’m a silver-rank adventurer now, but you two are still bronze rank. There’s no way we can make it in one of the three big cities.”
“Well, I think we could. I’m sure the adventurers at the top of the food chain are pretty high-rank, but there’s gotta be plenty of low-ranking adventurers too, right?” Ralph argued.
“Listen, I think we’ll be better off finding our footing in Oxstar than pushing our luck in Norfast. We’ll also be able to fly under the radar better there.”
The past three weeks had been so peaceful that I’d almost forgotten, but I had to keep in mind that Claus was trying to track me down.
Judging by the fact that I hadn’t picked up on anyone following me lately, it seemed like the letters I’d given to Mielle had had their intended effect. But I had no idea when my luck would turn. Someone could find me any day now.
I’d have to take pains not to stand out too much until I’d gotten a whole lot stronger.
“If it’s your brother you’re worried about, then Oxstar certainly seems to be the safer choice,” Hester said.
“We can think about moving to Norfast once we’ve started getting stronger,” I tried to reassure Ralph.
“I don’t have any objections to Oxstar,” Hester continued. “It’ll feel a lot like Realzahd, since they’re both close to big cities, so I think it’ll be a good fit for us!”
“No objections from me either,” Ralph chimed in. “Let’s start from square one in Oxstar.”
“Great. Thanks, guys.”
And just like that, we’d officially picked our new base.
We decided that we’d leave in a week. My hope was that we could take the next several days to say our goodbyes and prepare for the journey.
Four days later, our preparations were almost complete.
The three of us were hanging out in our room that evening when we heard a knock at the door.
“Huh...? Who’s that? Did you invite someone over, Chris?” Ralph asked in a normal volume.
“Quiet, Ralph,” I shushed him, wary that the person at the door might hear.
In the entire time we’d been living here at the Shangri La Hotel, we’d never had a single visitor. The odds felt high that the person on the other side of the door had something to do with Claus.
“Keep your voices down. It could be someone Claus sent to find me,” I said. “You two stay here. I’m going to climb down from the window and wrap back around so I’m approaching them from behind. Act like nothing is wrong and try to buy whatever time you can.”
“All right. We’ll stay here and wait for a signal from you, and we won’t open the door,” Hester said.
“Wait... Why would they knock, though? It’s a pretty flimsy wooden door. Surely they could just kick it in?” Ralph questioned.
“Well, maybe they aren’t after me. That would be great. But don’t open the door, even if they say they’re someone you know. Please, guys.”
Taking nothing but my steel sword with me, I hopped down from the window as quietly as I could. We were pretty high up, but I still managed to mostly cushion my fall.
I moved quickly, making my way back through the hotel’s front door and up to our room, praying it was just one person and not a whole gang at our door. I crept up carefully, trying to sneak a peek at them before making any moves.
There was a single figure standing outside our room, wearing a black robe and carrying a long staff. I couldn’t see their face, but they looked like a magic user of some sort.