Limits

The whole village was busy and in festive mood. This was due to the wedding ceremony that would take place in couple of days. Most of the important people were invited for the wedding. Nick was also one of them. I told Nick that I had my own plans and didn't need his help. I planned to travel to the Grasshill Village alone when Rand and others would leave first with the dowry.

Senty was already living in the Grasshill Village at her fiance place, or so I heard. Rand and others would travel there for couple of days and therefore they would leave tomorrow. I would leave the same day but I would take different path. I didn't want them to know that I left and therefore I would take a much more difficult and dangerous path.

I would arrive earlier than them but that was what I wanted. I didn't worry about finding the right house or the village. I asked Nick about the map and how to get to that village. He supplied a map for me and it covered the areas of about 4 days of horseback traveling in radius. I could see that there were couple of villages in that radius and the Grasshill Village was the biggest of them all.

No wonder people would try to befriend the Horseplain Village now due to the wedding with some kind of young master. I also found out from Nick that this young master was a son to the current chief of the Grashill Village. No wonder Rand was so happy when they proposed the marriage.

It was all nice and great. There was one problem though. That problem was called Nex and no one seemed to realise what I wanted to do. Only Nick knew what would happen but he would of course keep quiet about it.

The next day, Rand and others went out of village and traveled towards the Grasshill Village. Nick told me beforehand that Rand's disciple, the guy who always monitored me. Stayed behind in the village to keep an eye. He said that if I were to leave he would know about this. I didn't care much if he knew and better still I wanted for him to go after me because then he would die.

I returned to my house before I left and said to the turtle "I will be leaving for couple of days, so you have to take care of your meals by yourself. I will drop you off at the river and when I return, I will fetch you back". The turtle didn't seem to like the idea and pulled on my trousers with its mouth.

I thought it was concerned that I would leave it, so I said "Don't worry, I will return". The turtle wasn't having any of that and still pulled on my trousers. I was dumbfounded and thought 'What does it want?'. The turtle made couple of sounds and it looked like it still wanted to follow me.

I asked "You want to go with me?" to which the turtle nodded. I said to it "I need to travel very fast and you will not be able to keep up with me. I can't carry you around either and you are not stealthy. If I brought you to the Grasshill Village, people would know".

What the turtle did next was out of my expectations. It actually started running around. It wanted to show me that it would keep up with me. The sight was unbelievable 'what kind of turtle is so fast?' I thought. Not only was it intelligent but it was fast. I would understand if it was done in the water but on the land? I looked at the turtle and said in shock "Then fine, you can go with me".

I didn't know how else to respond and so that was the only thing I could do, say yes. Then I realised something. I always called it turtle or it but we were together for a bit of time now and the turtle seemed to be very attached to me, yet I never tried to give it a name. I said to the turtle "I actually forgot but how about we give you a name?".

The turtle seemed to like the idea and so I proposed couple of names. "How about Tory?" to which the turtle shook its head. It didn't like it apparently. I tried again "Then how about Jack?" to which the turtle repeated the process of shaking its head. I went through many names when finally I asked "Then how about Shelly? It's a good name right? It suits you because you have a shell". The turtle seemed to like this one and nodded its head in confirmation. I said "Great! From now on you will be known as Shelly!".

I then said "Alright Shelly, we shall move out now. We will probably meet someone on our way and if we do, he will die". Shelly seemed to understand my meaning and simply followed after me. When I got out of the village, I ran towards the path I established from the map. It wasn't hard to find a path once you knew how to do it. Nick gave me some lessons as to how to read directions at night but also while it was day. So I knew where the north was and how to stay on my path.

About 30 minutes of running later I could hear noises from behind me. I knew who was following me. I just slowed down a bit to a normal walking pace and awaited the guy behind me to catch up. The guy caught up after a minute or so and shouted "Stop!".

I stopped and turned around but I didn't bother replying or anything, I just threw 4 daggers at him in an instant. He didn't expect that type of development and so he got hit by all 4 daggers and died the least painful death, I assumed.

I already was prepared to kill for my revenge and anyone that stood in my way, was my enemy. Like Nick said "The art of hidden weapons is an art of killing. It was not created for self defence or protection or any other bullcrap! It was an art purely for killing".

I searched the corpse and found nothing except one tattered book that was on him. I retrieved the book and made some bigger cuts on the body. I wanted for wild animals to eat the corpse and the thicker the stench of blood was the further it would travel. This way some predators will be able to find this corpse.

Before I continued my journey, I looked through the book. It was a copy of the manual that gave Rand and his granddaughter more strength. I was a bit happy about it but I also knew it probably was incomplete. This guy was only some kind of disciple and not blood related, therefore he wouldn't have a full copy on himself.

I put away the book and noticed that Shelly was unperturbed by the death of this human. I said "This was the guest I talked about. I don't think anyone else will follow us. We should go now, there is a long way ahead of us". Shelly nodded its head and followed after me.