Chapter 35: Chapter 35 - Avoiding Death By Running

After my little skirmish with the giant boar, I stored its corpse with my nifty storage spell, and Julia and I got moving again.

She had no sympathy for the work I had just done, or that I might be slightly tired.

Although that wasn’t the case, I would’ve still appreciated it if we could have moved at something other than a jog.

I figured a nice romantic stroll through the woods would have been a much better way to spend the journey.

But apparently Julia’s opinion differed from mine slightly.

It also seemed that she had become in even more of a rush after our conversation next to the corpse.

Why that was I had no idea.

We had only talked about selling the corpse to the adventurers guild after all.

Maybe she had become just as excited as me about making money.

It’s possible that her hearing my conversation with Darvel about retiring early, and spending time with my wife had convinced her that making money was a brilliant idea.

It was my idea after all, so I can’t believe that she had ever doubted it.

We had been moving through the forest at a pretty fast pace for quite a while at that time.

Even with my longer legs, it had become quite a hassle to keep up with her.

My fitness levels might have improved quite a bit, but apparently she had practically inhuman fitness levels.

My breath came in ragged gasps, my normal long strides had become more of a struggling lumber forward, and yet she was going just as she had started.

Her breathing was steady and controlled.

Her steps were just as controlled and powerful as they had been that morning.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, we had been going for almost two hours after killing the boar after all.

"I can’t do this anymore, we need to stop for a few moments." I struggled out between breaths as I stopped, not even giving her the chance to refute.

She came to a stop a few steps ahead of me, looking back at me as I stood there bent over with my hands on my knees.

"We can slow down to a walk, but we’re definitely not stopping." She said, as she started to walk again.

I swear she was trying to kill me.

My thoughts ran through everything I had done and said to her that day.

Trying to figure out if I had pissed her off again somewhere along the line.

It was definitely not because of a woman again, obviously.

I thought everything over once, as I struggled to catch up to her again.

I thought everything over a second time when I caught up to her.

But I couldn’t think of anything I did wrong.

"Honey..." I started, trying to find the right words for ’why the hell are you trying to kill me this time?’

"Did I do something wrong again?" I finally decided that maybe simple was best.

She turned her striking gaze up to me as she kept moving.

She looked slightly confused about my question for a while, before a look of realisation, and a slight smile appeared on her face.

"You did nothing wrong." She said as she reached out and took my hand.

I don’t think any of you can understand the relief I felt at that moment.

Because if I had to spend our entire trip to the city with her trying to make me suffer death by running, along with the coldness I had to suffer through the last time, I might really have not made it.

At least we had now slowed to the romantic stroll that I had imagined.

We kept that leisurely pace for a while, until finally the sun reached its apex we stopped for lunch.

See, I told you I can sound fancy if I want to.

We sat down in a small clearing we had found, and had the pre-packed lunch I had bought from the inn.

"How much ground do you think we’ve covered?" I asked, with the pace we had been going at, I had an idea that we may have shaved down quite a bit of time from the original estimate Julia made.

"We’ve done pretty good, I think we’ve done about a third of the distance so far." Julia answered.

How she could see that as only pretty good I didn’t know. I mean if we had done almost a third of the distance in only half a day, it meant that at our current pace we would halve the time it would take us to reach the city again.

However, that did mean that we would have to keep going at that pace.

Which just might’ve killed me before we could reach the city.

"Please tell me we can slow down just a bit."

"Maybe we can just go at the pace we went at this morning?" I asked.

I really didn’t want to go at the pace we went at after the whole boar incident again.

Julia smiled at me, but at least this time it wasn’t the smile again.

"Sure, we can do that." She answered.

I couldn’t help the sigh of absolute relief from escaping me.

We had just finished our lunch when I heard a twig snap behind us.

When I looked back to see if there was anything there, all I could see was trees, and more trees.

That however didn’t mean that there was nothing there.

And if it was what I think it was, then my second goal for this trip might just have come to us.

I turned my gaze back to Julia, trying to see if she had noticed anything.

Because she had made her feelings about this plan of mine very clear, and I suspect that she might just try and kill my options.

Luckily it seemed that she hadn’t heard anything.

I couldn’t help the sly smile that started to form on my lips.

It seemed that that night might get interesting.