Chapter 17 - I Want the Truth!

Thomas woke up with hair in his mouth. It seems that he somehow confused Estella's hair for food in his sleep. Thomas spat out Estella's hair and gently removed himself from her side so that he didn't wake her.

Their current way of traveling was too inefficient and Annie wouldn't survive at this rate. There were some vehicles in the arsenal but the carriages and chariots were too heavy to move by hand and the wheelbarrow was too small. What Thomas settled with was a hand-pulled cart. Looking back to see that the two women were sleeping, Thomas purchased the wooden cart. After laying down some robes from his pocket dimension, it was ready to be used to transport Annie. The blankets had already been on the ground so they weren't as sanitary.

Estella was still asleep so Thomas carried Annie on his own. After placing Annie into the cart with her foot forward, Thomas went to retrieve the blankets and camping supplies. The weapons would be left out and carried in case of an emergency but the extra bow could be stored for now.

The only thing left to pack up was the blanket under Estella. Thomas didn't want to wake her up but it was important to keep moving. Being shaken awake, Estella was about to complain until she saw what was behind Thomas. "Where did that come from?"

Scratching his head, Thomas ignored the question. "Get up. We're all set to get going and we're just waiting on you." Seeing that Estella wasn't getting up, Thomas sighed. "I know that you want answers from me but right now we need to get Annie to a healer."

Thomas had to be stubborn about this since it's his greatest secret. An army would kill to get their hands on someone with his ability. Since Estella was a princess it was even more dangerous to let her know. It'd be hard for her to keep it secret if she needed his power to protect her people.

Since Estella still wasn't moving, Thomas turned around and walked back to the cart. If she really refused to move then he couldn't force her to come with him. She could even keep the blanket if she wanted to. Lifting the cart's handles, Thomas started walking in the direction they've been heading so that he'd be able to find a road. He knew the general location of where the village was so he just had to head in the opposite direction once he found a road.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Thomas heard something that caused him to become alert; there was some living being that was approaching quickly. "Wait for meee!" After Estella caught up, dragging the blanket behind her, she hunched over and held her knees while panting. "You... really left me... behind." She couldn't even form a complete sentence since she was so out of breath.

Thomas grabbed the blanket from her and smacked the dirt off of it. "I didn't leave you behind. You were the one that chose to stay behind." After folding the blanket a couple of times, Thomas rolled it up and pretended to put it in the cart while storing it away when Estella couldn't see it.

After catching her breath, Estella became a bit more talkative. "Is there a difference? All you had to do was tell me where you got the cart. It looks brand new! Even those bows you brought back looked too nice to be extras just left laying around. You're not just going to tell me that you got the cart from some hunter's stash as well or that you pulled it out of thin air, are you? Every time I turn around you've always got something new with you and you never say anything about where it came from. Do you really need to be so mysterious? Now that I think about it, you never even told me your name. Are you really even a survivor from the village those bandits destroyed? How can I trust you if you never tell me anything!?" Estella had a lot to get off her chest. For the first day she was able to ignore things since she was focused on surviving but now she was thinking more clearly.

Thomas was a bit surprised when he heard her outburst but when thinking about her point of view she was right to be mad. At first he rejected helping her because he didn't even know anything about her and here he was hiding everything from her. He might not be able to tell her about his abilities but he could at least explain to her that It's not something that he's comfortable sharing with anybody yet. As for his name, he wasn't sure what to tell her. He thought of himself as Thomas but the body's original name was Gren. For now it was probably best to give her the original name and let her know that he plans on changing it before reaching the capital.

"I can't tell you everything just yet but you're right. There are some things that you deserve to know. I am a survivor of the village; I didn't lie about that. My name is Gren but it might be best for us to go by different names in the future if the bandits find us. I was thinking about it and I really don't know who's in league with that bandit leader named Susan. Annie might know more but she's in no condition to talk. As for how I got the cart and everything else, I really can't tell anybody right now. It's not that I want to be mysterious but I can't tell anybody the truth. I'm sorry.". Thomas made sure to give her most of the answers to the questions that she asked him. He knew that she wouldn't be completely satisfied with his answers but he said all that he could without saying something that would harm him in the future.

Estella calmed down with his response wasn't completely satisfied. Maybe she didn't get the answer she wanted the most but at least now she knew more about him than she did before. After Thomas started traveling again, Estella was right there beside him. "Gren, huh? So that's your name. How weird."

Thomas started to regret telling her his name.