"What? You can't find her?"
The King of Eldia frowned, looking at his subordinate who was reporting while kneeling on one knee. At this moment, his hunting party was standing at the spot where Asahi had instructed Ymir to bathe some time ago.
There were only a few residual traces at this location. The scent only reached here, the rest had mostly dispersed.
"Your Majesty, there's nothing here either!"
On the other side of the river, a soldier shouted. They still led the hunting dogs, but the dogs couldn't smell anything in this area.
"That's strange. Where could she have gone?"
"Slaves are always the smelliest lot; there's no reason why the hunting dogs shouldn't pick up the scent."
In the eyes of these people, the possibility that Ymir could intentionally erase her tracks and carefully wash away her body odor to evade the hunting dogs did not exist. For them, slaves were just a low-class, foolish bunch—how could they think of something so "sophisticated"? Also, because this situation had happened many times before, the foolish, released slaves would run straight into the forest, and they would simply hunt them down.
"She must be around here. Search deeper in the forest!"
The King of Eldia commanded, an expression of boundless cruelty and tyranny flashing in his eyes. He owned countless slaves and could easily ignore Ymir to hunt another, but his gaze remained fixed—he couldn't bear the thought of Ymir escaping his control, even though he had verbally granted her freedom.
Meanwhile, Asahi and Ymir had traveled for half a day. He estimated the distance covered to be around ten kilometers, which wasn't far considering the opposition had horses and he was only traveling on foot, but the river didn't flow straight; it meandered, making their path relatively safe.
Most importantly, Ymir was already exhausted—she was completely worn out, to be precise. She was a slave, used to performing heavy labor, but that only raised her endurance, not her physical strength.
In addition, due to insufficient food, Ymir's body was in a state of alarm.
Otherwise, taking the average walking speed of a normal person, five kilometers per hour, as a standard, Ymir should have been able to go further.
"Alright, let's rest here."
At his words, Ymir finally stopped. Although very tired, the little girl showed no sign of wanting to stop until Asahi spoke. Even though she had escaped the rule of the Eldian people, her mind was still chained. It had merely shifted from the King of Eldia to him.
There is a huge difference between obedience and servitude. He didn't want that, but this wasn't something that could be changed overnight.
Slowly but surely.
It was now late afternoon, with a few hours left before darkness. This should be enough time to prepare for nightfall.
First, they had to build a shelter for the night, next, they needed fire, and finally, food.
For building a makeshift shelter, three straight and long logs formed three supports that converged at the top. Next, foliage was tied together with vines and draped over the frame of the shelter, covering it as tightly as possible. The ground underneath was lined with grass padding, which had to be separated by at least one layer from the soil below to limit insects from crawling in and disturbing them.
This wasn't too difficult, but because Ymir didn't have much strength, it was time-consuming and exhausting. It took an hour until a "barely adequate" shelter was built.
Next, Asahi instructed the little girl to gather materials for starting a fire: branches, tinder, flammable scraps, shredded bark, etc. However, he dared not let Ymir light the fire just yet; it should wait until the sky began to darken. At that time, smoke rising would be harder to observe. He didn't dare gamble on whether they could see the smoke rising; caution was best.
The final issue was food, which turned out to be the simplest, as a river was right beside them.
In this era, chemical discharge facilities or factories certainly did not exist, so the river's ecosystem was relatively thriving. While not teeming, there were at least fish available.
As for why the slaves were still hungry despite having such a rich food source nearby, the answer was simple. Everything they caught belonged to the Eldian people, because the slaves themselves were the property of the Eldian people. Moreover, slaves had to work until the end of the day to be "rewarded" with a bowl of barley gruel. Leading such a toilsome life, where would they find the time to hunt?
"Ymir, if you want to catch a fish, don't just chase its tail, look at its head."
"That's right, aim for the head, and as your hand goes down, you'll catch its body."
At this moment, Asahi was meticulously teaching Ymir the most effective way to catch fish. He actually wanted her to try making and using a fishing rod, but because he didn't have enough knowledge in that area, he had to settle for this.
Currently, he existed in Ymir's sight only as a will-body, not even a small fragment of a soul. So, he couldn't connect to the system, and his capabilities were very limited.
Contrary to his silent concern, Ymir seemed very happy, even enjoying the process of catching fish.
In this life full of suffering, sometimes just a little joy is enough to strengthen one's resolve to continue living.
She looked at the fish, about two fingers long, wiggling in her palm, and suddenly understood something.
"Being able to travel here and there, being able to do these things... this is freedom, isn't it?"
The caught fish were placed on a large leaf. After catching a sufficient number to eat, with a few remaining, the sky began to change color.
It was time to light a fire.
This step could be said to be very important. Whether the night would be warm or cold depended entirely on this single step.
He carefully recalled the fire-starting steps he had seen on survival television shows and began to guide Ymir. First, they needed a log large enough, at least the size of a wrist, with a small portion of bark cut away. Then, using a straight stick with a small point, they started to drill into the area where the bark was removed.
This drilling technique usually involves continuous rubbing with bare hands, but creating fire that way was impossible with Ymir's strength. Fortunately, in the show he watched, people demonstrated a more feasible method: using a cord wrapped around the small stick, with the two ends of the cord tied to a curved branch forming a bow. This created a continuous rotating motion just by moving the curved branch up and down.
After a long period of fumbling, or more accurately, an entire hour of fumbling until the sun had set halfway, a small flame finally erupted. Following Asahi's instructions, Ymir carefully used the flammable materials she had prepared earlier to make the fire bigger. Then she added the small firewood sticks.
A campfire appeared, warming and drying Ymir. She sat staring at the fire for a long time without moving, as if engraving this image into her mind. Only when he reminded her did she place the prepared fish skewers over the fire to roast.
These were mostly small fish, so they cooked very quickly. A short while later, a roasted fish skewer, slightly charred on one side, appeared. Because Ymir lacked the skill to properly prepare the fish, he could only instruct her to gut the fish and roast it immediately, even the scales were still there, roasted together. Nevertheless, for Ymir, this dish was the best food in the world.
The little girl looked up at Asahi sitting beside her, raising the fish skewer as if inviting him to eat together. He waved his hand, signaling that he didn't need any.
Thus, one day came to an end.