4: The Distance

The capital was a day away on foot, and only a half a day on horseback. The settlement had little money to spend on such items. They had trained cattle to plow the fields and found no need to have a horse for any other reason.

The knight really wanted to run. He couldn't bear to sit around while the village could be attacked at any moment. However, he could not for two reasons. The first reason being that Cleo came with him. She was interested to see how this unnamed man would get the attention of the archmagi. She wasn't weak, but that didn't mean she could sprint the entire way to the capital. The second reason is because Cleo is forcing the knight to take it easy. He had exhausted himself to the point where he stood on death's door. It would take a long time to recover from that level of physical exertion. The torn muscles would take a long time to heal, even for someone with mana in their body.

The reason why the knight was worried about the beast attacking the settlement is because as beasts evolved, they not only became stronger but also smarter. A cerberus is easily capable of remembering an enemy and harboring a grudge towards it. The beast would most certainly level entire towns to find and devour the knight.

As the knight walked, he began remembering more of his past. He was getting tired of thinking about his regrets and just wanted to forget them, but he knew he couldn't, not when he was returning to the place where his roots remained. Not even three hours into the journey, the knight kept repeatedly hitting his own head, causing Cleo to have to stun him by stopping the motion in his arms temporarily.

"We need you conscious right now. We won't get there any quicker if I have to drag you there, so stop trying to knock yourself out. It doesn't help either of us!" she exclaimed, enraged at her companion's stupidity.

"Sorry…" the knight replied meekly, realizing the healer was capable of far more than what she initially let on.

After twenty minutes or so of an awkward silence, Cleo decided she needed to break it. "What made you so shaken up? Based on every other time I've seen you, nothing ever has much of an emotional effect on you."

"Hit the nail on the head, but you hit your thumb along with it. It's something not worth talking about at the moment, and it would only trouble you when we reach our destination."

"It's almost like you're pleading with me to question you further by answering like that. You've made me even more curious, especially since it seems like you have more authority than you should." Cleo remained calm, making a small joke out of his terrible communication skills, but she was screaming to know the knight's past on the inside. She wanted to know how a nameless could grab the attention of the archmagi. They never cared for anyone who couldn't use any magic… well, besides the colorless. Even then, the only successful colorless ended in a tragedy, causing the archmagi to give up all hope in the element.

The knight responded in a low, dangerous voice. "Oh please, just shut up. You know what I mean."

Again, the travelers were left with nothing to talk about. Neither of them felt comfortable talking with the other, and the knight just didn't want to talk in general.

The sun eventually hit its peak, and began to fall towards the west. As the sun was finishing its slow descent below the horizon, and the sky became a flaming orange, the pair sat down beside the road to begin eating their meal.

After several minutes of eating dried meat and sipping out of their canteens in silence, the knight finally asked the question he had been tossing through his mind for the entire day.

"Cleo… I've been wondering..."

"I may have an answer, let's hope your question and my answer line up."

"Since you stunned my arms earlier today, does that mean you are capable of augmentation? If so, we have a chance at defeating the Cerberus on our own." He was curious to know if she could do this, and what level of augmentation she could perform.

One of the abilities of pink magic is called rose magic, it is a type of pink magic which allows the healer to edit the body in a certain way, augmenting it for a short amount of time. These augmentations can be both constructive and destructive, allowing a rose mage to be a rounded support in battles. However, the drawback to this magic is it only works on contact with the target. To augment someone's movement speed, you would need to augment both of their legs individually, and equally. The higher the magnitude of the augmentation, the harder it is to get a firm grasp on what level it is augmented to. This is why users of rose magic become front line combatants rather than supportive units, because it is much easier to augment one's own body on an even level than someone else's.

Rose mana was the first type August was able to learn. He was adept at using it, training with it to the point where he could augment his body without thinking about it, allowing himself to run at speeds far beyond the human limit with ease.

Her answer was slightly disappointing to the knight; "I am able to use it, but I am not proficient. I am able to make minor enhancements to your physique, but nothing more. I am unable to augment myself in any way, this includes self healing. I'm afraid I will be of no use if you were set on challenging the Cerberus."

"How disappointing. I have heard some tricks along my travels to gathering mana within oneself, but I don't know if they will help. We can try them for the remainder of our journey... that is if your cap is high enough." the knight added the last part to tick off Cleo, challenging her to try.

"Oh, you are quite the prick when you want to be. I'll take your challenge, m'lord."

Once the two had finished eating, they set off, a renewed confidence showing in their stride.

The knight began instructing her almost immediately; "Try concentrating all of the mana in your core, until you feel as if a stone has been implanted in you. From there, disperse it evenly throughout your body. It will be impossible to start with augmentation right off the bat, after all, you're not a colorless prodigy, so we'll begin with healing."

He pulled out his knight and looked her dead in the eyes. "This is for your training, it will hurt, but this is how you'll learn."

The knight had said this with so much authority, that she began to wonder if the knight was a user of pink or rose magic and hiding his name from her. There aren't many reasons he would do that, unless he was in high standing, but by the way he was dressed, if he was a noble, he had been a traveler for a long time, and no young nobles had run away successfully in years.

As she was deep in her thought, a sudden spike of pain shot up her spine like an inferno. She let out a cry of agony. The knight gently laid his hand to rest on her head as he finished. There were now two decently sized cuts on her, one on her left forearm, the other on the back of her right calf.

"When you disperse the mana throughout your body, try to activate the healing properties of it. The feeling should be something akin to what you feel when healing others. Progress will be slow, and it will probably be a while before you even begin to heal those cuts, so I only made two. Keep trying to do this while we're walking and I can try to answer any questions you have."

"If you weren't such a jerk who sucked at talking to people, I might've found you attractive," Cleo noted, just loud enough for the knight to hear.

"You misunderstand me. If you're able to augment yourself, you won't be a huge burden in the event we're attacked by something. So try your hardest, I'm almost rooting for you."

The two continued to bicker in a lighthearted manner as they walked, but eventually quieted down, Cleo because she wanted to concentrate, and the knight because he wanted to give her room to train.

As the morning dawned on them after a long and silent night, the capital's solid gray walls were seen rising from beyond the horizon.

'Welcome home…' the knight dimly thought to himself.