MERCHANT ADVENTURER

Midas

I pretended that I needed to empty my bladder, so I went to a place not too far from where my group sat. Hiding behind a tree, I spoke with Midas.

"Are those people following behind us good people?" I asked her in a whisper.

"Good people," she answered. "If you're going to worry about anyone, you had better watch out for those two men in your group. They have bad hearts."

"Who?" I didn't know if Midas was referring to the father and son pair or the two brothers.

"They aren't brothers," Midas retorted in disgust.

"I understand," I told her.

When I walked back, I saw the group behind us was packing up to leave.

I headed over to Jonas' side. "What should we do now?" I asked him.

Jonas said, "Maybe we should also get a move on. I've heard that bandits will follow their prey. Once they think the prey is suspicious of them, they'll move ahead, only to set up an ambush."

"How about we follow closely behind the group ahead of us. From the looks of it, they are armed men."

"Yeah, I've thought of that too," Jonas replied. "I can tell a rich nobleman hired an armed escort service to take him someplace. Only, they may think of us as pests and drive us away. Or worse, they may think we're bandits in disguise and give us a thrashing."

Because Jonas wasn't exactly certain what decision to make, he called the rest of the team over to discuss. After a lengthy discussion, we all decided to follow behind the armed escort service group in front of us. We planned on traveling a distance behind them. Plus, with a female and a small child in our group, they would probably not consider us a threat to them.

Having made our decision, we packed up our things and slowly followed behind the armed escort service group.

We traveled quite far. Although the group in front of us had horses, they didn't travel quickly. Riding in a carriage often leads to nausea. I know because I rode in one with the Young Master. I threw up. Afterwards, he never allowed me to enter a carriage again. I would have to run beside the carriage, when I was tasked to accompany him outside.