The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 475

Chapter 475 Overnight Stop

With the goods loaded, Karl was ready to leave for their next destination, but it seemed too fast to be in and out of town. They should at least look around at a few other spots, and not just stop in at one merchant and bolt like they were running from something.

So Karl didn't turn Thor directly around, he made a small loop through the surrounding streets to go by a fish and chips vendor and grab a bite to eat. They weren't hungry yet, but it would be the usual thing for a travelling merchant to do, even if they were in a hurry. _{freēwēbnovel.com}

The vendor was happy to make an early morning sale just as he was getting the fryers heated for the day, and Karl left with plenty of food for the day, wrapped in crudely made straw paper.

It smelled delicious, and they had two healers with them, so once Karl had taste tested it for poison, everyone started a second breakfast.

The guards didn't even give them a second look as they headed south out of town and headed toward Lutonade. The road was little more than a well-worn wagon track, and didn't show much sign of improvement in the last few decades. The road north of town was better, so it was possible that the travellers in this area often split up to take other routes and avoid bandits.

That seemed like a good idea to Karl. If they went a bit inland of the current road, they would eventually meet up with the main road heading east. It was harder for bandits to guess how far you would be from the road, and if they had to come to you, the ambush was ruined. Karl's team was on the strong side for this continent, and even on the other one, he would be able to hold his own with a group like this. At the very least, they weren't a soft target or tempting to bandits who didn't have a death wish.

Karl led Thor off into the open grasslands, and kept him at a cautious trot, both for the sake of the passengers and the wagon itself. It was a good one, but it was still just a regular wooden wagon. If they abused it too hard, they did risk damaging it before they got where they were going.

That would be a nightmare for them all, and they would have to walk the rest of the way unless Lotus' magic could fix a wagon. It was good for growing and altering wooden things, so it was possible, but Karl didn't want to risk having to find out in the middle of nowhere with a broken wagon.

Fortunately, the ground was open grasslands, with only a few stands of trees, and they were able to make good time. Even at this pace, it would take almost all day to get past Lutonade, and they would still be uncomfortably close if they didn't detour further east.

So, any time that there was an obstacle, Karl led Thor to the east of it, getting further from the road which stayed close to the coast.

Just after the sun passed its zenith, marking midday, they found a pounded path that went southeast. There were no markers for where the tribal and nomadic villages were, but this looked like an entire army had passed by multiple times.

It hadn't crossed their path earlier, so at some point it must have turned, but it was going in generally the correct direction to avoid the pirate port. The only problem was that it might lead to an army camp, or a slaver village that wasn't marked on the map.

"Are we really going to follow the path of an army?" Dana asked as she realized what Karl was doing.

"It doesn't look fresh. See how the weeds are regrown? The path was used multiple times, but not in the last month or so. At least not by a full army. It might have been the path to and then from an attack." Tessa noted.

If that was the case, there was a fifty-fifty chance that they wouldn't come across anything because the target would have been destroyed or moved by now. The tribes in the area were all nomadic, they wouldn't stay in one spot that long during the summer, when they were mostly stocking food for the winter.