A God in a Xianxia world

Chapter 34 - Unexpected Companion

Tom left Hill city through the west gate and proceeded along the road at a trot.

He was going to entering the Tainted Forest which was about 70 miles to the west of Hill city but first he would be passing through the town of Acorn, just a stone's throw away from the forest boundary.

Thankfully, unlike the land directly north and south east of Hill city, which was hilly and mountainous respectively, the land to the west was mainly flat and rolling. This meant that the ride to Acorn could easily be handled in a day.

Although the horses Tom's group were riding weren't the best; strengthened by qi, travelling a 100 miles a day was no problem. However, since Tom's group also had a horse drawn wagon that they were bringing along, their pace was slowed considerably. By the time they would reach Acorn, the Town gates would already be shut and unlike with Hill city, the guards there wouldn't open the gates for them. Because of this, Tom was planning to stop in a village east of Acorn for the night and then continue on the next day.

While riding along, Tom saw many travellers along the road. There were people from regional villages and small towns that were walking back and forth to Hill city, conducting their own business, such as peddling goods. However, many people Tom saw consisted of warriors and mercenaries. People who made their business as escorts for those weaker than themselves and people that made a living by hunting in the Tainted Forest and selling the goods they procured.

Aside from the weaker and poorer people, who were walking along the road, there was also a fair share of people travelling on horseback. Generally these were the stronger warriors and cultivators who were able to make a better living for themselves or people from wealthier families, however, Tom also occasionally saw individual and groups of people wearing the grey tops of Iron fist sect disciples.

Although the majority of people to enter and hunt in the Tainted Forest were ordinary warriors, since the Iron fist sect was located in the mountainous region just south east of Hill city, many of their disciples would enter the forest by passing through the town of Acorn and then conduct their business in either Acorn or Hill city.

After several hours of travelling, Tom's group stopped to have a rest and eat some food.

While they were sitting down on the side of the road, Tom looked back on the path that he had just travelled along and saw a rider galloping quite fast towards them. At first, Tom just assumed this was an ordinary traveller that would pass them by, but, as the rider got closer and their features were easier to make out, Tom noticed the distinctive maroon coloured hair of the person riding the horse. As that person got closer still, it became easy to identify them as Rowan Cardinal, Tom's 18 year old cousin.

"Whoa!" Rowan shouted at the horse, telling it to stop and pulling up just in front of Tom.

"Hey there" she said cheerily, "It seems I've caught up"

Tom looked at Rowan in mild confusion while the guards that were accompanying him had started to fuss between themselves at her sudden appearance. He wasn't sure why she was here and he hadn't been told about anything like this before hand. All he knew was that unlike her brother and parents, she hadn't gone to see him off when he left the city.

[Is she here because she wanted to say goodbye to me? That's kind of weird isn't it? Maybe she regretted that she didn't get to say goodbye to me, but, isn't this going a bit over the top, we're already 25 miles from the city]

"Wha... what are you doing here?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I'm going with you" she replied brightly.

"Why?" Tom frowned and asked after a short pause.