CHAPTER 53: BACK AT THE SECT

With the huntress proving to be quite adept at cutting the needless small talk, Theo could finally turn and leave the wildlands behind.

Contrary to all the traveling he did up until this point, however, this time he limited himself to just... running.

Yes.

Rather than employing some sort of magic in his movement, Theo settled on just the peasant trot at a speed his body and cultivation allowed.

The Slevian sect, while still a considerable distance away, was simply too close for Theo to bother.

And so, after roughly half an hour of a physically demanding yet still relaxing sprint, Theo finally reached the outermost fields of the sect, soon to cross through the farmlands and reach the area of the actual sect.

"Theo?" Kato froze when he spotted his friend, almost dropping a package he was carrying in his hands. "What the... How... Why from here?"

While a series of questions came out of Kato’s mouth, his head continued to bob to the sides as he looked back and forth between the direction Theo came from and the direction he should arrive when returning from Vistra.

Then, as he opted to just ignore this small detail with a shake of his head, Kato’s eyes moved over to Theo’s visibly empty hands.

One realization later, he breathed out a sigh of acceptance before crossing the distance between the two in silence and reaching out, only to place his hand down on Theo’s shoulder.

"So it didn’t work, huh?" he muttered, shaking his head while keeping a firm hold over Theo’s shoulder. "Still, don’t beat yourself up over it. Even if you are a royal, you are still a human. And it’s in man’s nature to err and fail at times."

Theo was baffled by Kato’s response at first, only for his eyebrows to then move up as everything clicked.

"Oh, but I didn’t fail, though?" he countered, leaning his head over to the side as he gave his friend a confused, if not slightly amused, look.

"Is that so?" Kato looked up, his face taking a look of proper concern this time. He then bit down on his lips, struggling with something for a moment before heaving a long, heavy sigh and then slightly nodding his head.

"It’s okay, man, I understand. You didn’t fail at all," he spoke, the look of worry only growing in his eyes the more he tried to hide it. "You worked really hard, I know. Even if no one else will, remember, I know!"

Theo rolled his eyes, entertaining the idea of letting Kato stick to his misinterpretation.

But just like he resisted the temptation back out in the wildlands, Theo ultimately decided to clear things up.

"The fact that I didn’t bring the stuff here myself doesn’t mean I’ve failed," he stated while grabbing and then removing Kato’s hand from his shoulder. "I guess the caravan I’ve hired to transport it was quite a bit slower than I was."

As if the universe decided to make things easier for Theo for once, it was right then that a commotion rose at the other end of the sect, huge enough for its echo to reach all the way over to where the two bickered a bit.

"I wonder what’s going on there?" Kato muttered, turning his head to where the increasing noise was coming from while fixing his hold over the package he held in his arms.

"The arrival of the caravan I just spoke of, I bet."

"Wait," Kato tensed up as his eyes widened, "you weren’t joking about this?"

"And why would I?" Theo countered with a shrug of his shoulders. "But well, I might be wrong. Best thing we can do is go and check."

The Slevian sect, for all the past glory that it had, never was a big place. Even with the old structures left behind from its golden age and then all the gardens, new buildings, and outermost guard posts, it was the size of a single district of Vistra town, a town that was by no means big in its own right.

By running at a standard pace for a cultivator, crossing the entirety of the sect would take less than a minute. Heck, if not for the need to avoid crashing into buildings and other obstacles, fifteen seconds would suffice!

Yet, as Theo and Kato peacefully strolled through the street, squeezed through the narrow alleys, and then forced their way through the crowds, crossing this short distance took them nearly a quarter of an hour instead!

"What’s with that crowd..." Kato complained, his face now taking on the tones of pure, unbridled anger.

For an inner-sect cultivator like him to squeeze through outer sect cultivators, servants, and even common farmers like that was definitely an unusual and surely an unpleasant experience.

And yet, there wasn’t anything he could do about it, not when the whole commotion was taking place outside of the innermost core of the sect where only the inner disciples were allowed.

Over at the sect’s border, where even mortals could walk around as they wished, it was all a fair game. And trying to throw the weight of one’s status or power would be the easiest way to paint a target on one’s own back and invite the entire damn sect to kick it!

Still, after a few more moments of squeezing through the crowd, the two of them finally arrived at what could only be described as a logistical frontline, where a whole crowd of workers was moving around with haste, each carrying huge and obviously heavy boxes from the nearby caravan.

This created three distinct layers to the crowd, with the spectators on one side, workers in the middle, and then a whole group of warriors and their tamed monsters on the other side.

"See?" Now that there was proof of his words right before their eyes, Theo couldn’t help but gloat a little. "I’ve told you I didn’t fail."

"Yeah, I can see it," Kato muttered, his expression darkening a little. "What I can’t really understand, though," he turned and looked right into Theo’s face, "is how did you manage to afford not only all that those guys brought over," he pointed his hand at where the workers put away all the boxes, only for his hand to then move over to the caravan’s guards, "but also professional guards too?"

Kato shook his head.

"I saw it, when the big man threw you the pouch. And from its trajectory, I could tell, to a degree, how heavy it was," he claimed before shaking his head and then locking his arms on his chest while a look of defiance appeared all over his face. "And there’s no way there was enough coin in there for you to afford it all!"

The conversation would likely continue... if not for how Kato’s pointing at the guards appeared to be somehow the drop that overflowed the chalice of their patience. And after enduring the looks, whispers, and murmurs of the crowd for so long, one of them finally snapped and crossed over, only to then stand right up to Kato’s face.

"The hell is your problem, man?" the guard asked, the aura around him tense from all the spiritual energy contained in his flesh. "Don’t you think it’s rude to point your hand at someone else like that?"

This was... stupid.

Anyone could tell that much just by listening to the complaint the caravan’s guard brought with him.

And yet, exactly because of how stupid his reason for anger was, it somehow made perfect sense.

It was a situation that Kato could resolve with a simple apology followed by a short explanation of how he meant them no disrespect at all.

But Kato was a cultivator.

And he reached a level that pretty much made him a lesser noble.

Which is why, when faced with a challenge, backing off was the last thing on his mind.

A fact that clearly showed on his face and how it changed in response to the open provocation.

"Well, isn’t that just great?" Theo quickly injected himself into the situation, hoping to de-escalate it and change its direction into something that wouldn’t delay his plans any further. "I felt like our combat arts were stagnating as of late, so, if you, brave warriors of the road, wouldn’t mind," he turned to the caravan guard with a bright smile before leaning his head over his shoulder, "what would you say about a friendly spar?"