179 Can I help you? (2/2)

What he told about his aunt reminded Ivan of his own daughter. She too was stronger than other children of her age. Luckily she had never tried to run away.

”Do you have something to trace her? I can take you to look for her.”, he didn't mind helping. Especially since it was on the way.

Seeing that he agreed to help the other person expressed his happiness by smiling widely, ”Of course, Of course.”, he hurriedly pulled out an instrument that looked like a compass, just that the needle wasn't pointing north but somewhere in the direction away from the outpost.

Ivan took a look at it and then got onto Vlada, ”Get on.”

”Thank you so much.”, the person thanked him while jumping up behind him. The movement was effortless and demonstrated good control and power. It seemed that he was more powerful than Ivan.

Ivan had already communicated with Vlada about letting him ride with them, so she didn't have a reaction when someone strange landed on her back. There was no saddle or anything like these, but for neither of them, balancing on her back posed a problem. They sat down on her wide back and started to talk, while Vlada started flying in the direction the compass had pointed.

”So tell me how come you are in such a hurry to chase after your aunt? She should have done things like this before and everything went well, right?”, Ivan asked his new companion.

”You guessed it. My aunt is really a handful. She has already maxed out her stats, although she is only ten, so everything that others of her age do seems boring to her. She instead loves to read about adventuring. First, it was only reading and then she started to actively pursuit it. Forcing some of our servants to take her with them until going out alone.”, it seemed the other person was very willing to tell the story, making Ivan see the grievances he had suffered from his little aunt's behavior.

”While it was fine as long as she went with our servants, going alone is too dangerous for her.”

Ivan nodded. If he thought about Jane going out on an adventure at her age and alone to boot, then he couldn't help but feel scared.

”So after the first time she did that, we tried everything to stop her from going out alone. We even let her go out with some servants to have fun. But all of that didn't stop her from slipping out again and again. And do you know what the worst thing is?”

”No.”

”We can't even stop her from escaping.”, he exclaimed, ”Anything short of imprisonment and putting chains on her is unable to stop that little beast.”, it seemed like he had talked himself into a rage since his face became red and the description he found for his aunt became much more colorful as well.

He started to tell Ivan about how his aunt had run away and how his grandfather had send him to catch her and bring her back. And each and every time it had become harder to do so since his aunt had started to see it as a competition and she had taken every measure possible to escape his pursuit. Of course, with the blood compass in his hands, the most she could do was delay him, but that was enough to get herself into trouble.

One time he had to save her from a pack of angry wolves. She had stolen one of their pups and had intended to make it her pet. It wasn't hard to guess that they hadn't been happy about it and what their intended punishment was going to be.

When he had arrived, she was already in a desperate strait. Honestly, after that, he had thought that she would calm down and understand how dangerous it was to run off alone. But who would have guessed that this false feeling of safety had been made use of by her to once again run away? And this time she had managed to delay him for nearly a week. Who knows how far she had managed to go during this time.

If everything went well she had only wandered around in the grassland but more likely was that she had already entered the forests.

”So, do you think she is currently in danger?”, Ivan asked worriedly.

”I don't think so. Nothing in the forest should pose that much of a problem for her. But somehow she always finds a way to get into problems.”