Chronos was right, there was no creature bigger than a rabbit nearby which made the morning very boring for him.
"This is a very slow morning. I am going for a run; it will be better than sitting here."
"Alright don't run too far from the road, the bees might only watch the road."
Smiling, he left for the woods.
Running through the woods he started to relax. Perhaps it was his wolf blood but running long distances always calmed him down, even if there was nothing to do during the run.
While running he took note of the herbs growing along his path. They would flourish with the bees caring for them and need to be harvested sooner or later. There were plenty of herbs for healing potions and antidotes of various types. He could also see a few herbs for cure potions to treat diseases; those were rare and would need to be handled by a priest.
"I don't see any poisonous herbs. Are the bees killing them or do they just not grow here? Well, it's something for the priests to look into." He thought to himself.
There were slimes under the bushes as well as rabbits but none of them were of the hostile types. That would be good for the forest, any trash left by travelers would be cleaned by the slimes. Blue slimes would eat almost anything after all but if they ate too many corpses or drugs, they would mutate into a red slime which made it easy to find someone trying to hide a crime in the forest.
With the afternoon meal coming Chronos returned to the caravan. As he got closer, he could smell chicken soup being prepared.
"Welcome back anything out there?"
"Just plenty of herbs. Some of them are useful for cure potions so I will put a report in with the Dracofen temple when we reach it. We should also see if we can switch our horse with another beast, I don't think it will last till the capital."
"It is quite old. Oh, maybe we can get a magic beast from the temple! It would be much faster than normal beasts." Sariah said as she dished out the soup.
Lunch passed uneventfully and Chronos wondered if these peaceful days would be normal. If it was then he would need to find something to fill his time, too much peace would dull his senses. After the caravan was underway Chronos went back to running through the forest.
On second thought, being able to run freely every day like this was quite nice. Better than the days of constant training in the family compound with barely any trips outside.
As evening was approaching Chronos started to hear birds again, they had been missing for the last two days.
Reuniting with the caravan he called out to the guards. "We're going to need to post guards tonight. I could hear the birds in the distance, so we are nearly out of the protected area."
"Is that so, then we'll stop the caravan in the next clearing. An easy night will let the guards prepare for tomorrow, also I wanted to ask you to give some training to the guards when there isn't combat during the day. It would help them increase their skills more than training with me." The Captain asked him.
"Sure, we will start tonight with basic training so I can see what skill level they are at." Returning to his carriage he asked Gregory. "Do you want to come help with the training tonight?"
"Yes, and how did you know I would hear that?"
"You hear everything Greg. I wouldn't be surprised if you knew where I went for my run today."
"You went west then circled around in front of us to the east."
Chronos was now freaking out as his head snapped around to face him. "How did you know!? I was only joking about that." Gregory didn't leave the carriage so maybe he had put a tracking spell on him?
"Knowing that you would want to head deeper into the dangerous forest to the east, you will go west first since your instincts won't let you go east until you know the pack is safe. If you know a person's habits it is easy to predict what they will do."
"It is unfair to be that skilled at studying people." Chronos frowned as he realized that all of his habits were likely known by Gregory.
"I agree. He always knows what I am up to even before I do." Sariah agreed, just as frustrated as Chronos about his knowledge. "It makes it impossible to surprise him."
"Has he never acted surprised before? We should work together to surprise him sometime."
Sariah and Chronos shook hands as they started making plans for a good surprise. Maybe for his birthday if they could find out when that was.
"Alright you two stop plotting back there. We are coming up on a clearing now so start preparing the camp."
"Okay"
Once the camp was ready Chronos and Gregory went to where the guards had gathered for a training session. Even from a distance the Captain's voice was easily heard.
"Everybody line up. Tonight we are having a special training session under Chronos' lead so make sure to show him your best."
"Yes sir"
As soon as they took their stances to begin their routine Chronos immediately noticed that something was wrong. The guard stance was too low.
Guard, thrust, guard, cut, thrust, guard, slash, thrust, parry, guard.
They were thrusting too much as well as overextending. Just where had they learned this from. It looked all wrong for the swords they were holding. Like they should have a larger weapon?
While the training continued the Captain walked among them correcting those that were clearly wrong and giving advice to newer members before making his way over to the two of them.
"What do you think?"
"Where did you learn swordsmanship from? I assume you taught all of them?"
"Yes, I did and to be honest I learned from secretly watching an old man in my village and some manuscripts he left behind."
"Their footwork is good, but the guard stance is too low, and they use thrusts too much. Also why do they keep holding their swords with two hands? Some of those are clearly half hand or smaller blades."
"Ah, he refused to teach me himself." He scratched his head while looking embarrassed.
Is this guy that talented or were his manuscripts that good? Looking at his scars Chronos came to the conclusion that he was a battle junkie just like him. He must have fixed the technique while practicing on his own but hadn't realized what he had done.
"I see, I think your sword style was meant for a much larger sword like a claymore or a zweihander. It would explain the aggressive style as those blades were made to break spears and keep enemies a distance away." Pondering on this he continued "We will need to change the style if you aren't willing to invest in larger blades."
If they didn't invest in new swords they would have to retrain from the start and change some of their habits. This could take months which from a mercenary company's perspective was unacceptable. On the other hand buying new larger swords would impact their income for some time.
In the short term it would hurt to get new blades but long term it would be very beneficial but changing the style could damage the company permanently.
"I will get new swords for everyone. In the meantime could you help us train to cover our weaknesses?"
"Of course. Reviewing the basics is a good thing for me as well."
The rest of the evening was spent correcting stances and teaching new techniques to the guards. They would still need lots of practice to use any of them in combat but knowing them would help them out in the long run.
Once the training was finished the Captain invited them for a drink and to talk about a concern he had.
Passing the canteen of whisky to the other two he began "I don't like this trip. Brynn wants to buy potions from the naga but my gut says something is wrong with the swamps. I was wondering if we could pay you two to come with us?"
Looking at each other Gregory shook his head "We are heading to the capital and can't miss the exploration knight exams being held there. If you are that worried have you spoken with Brynn about this."
"Aye but he still insists on going there. Apparently the profits are worth it or some such nonsense and we can't break our contract without a suitable reason."
"Having gut issues doesn't really qualify." Chronos chuckled to himself "I don't envy you but if you are that worried then you should ask around at the Dracofen temple. They almost always know what is going on in the swamps, even if they don't intervene in most cases."
"I'll have to do that." Captain sighed deeply and took a sip of whisky as he worried about the future.