When Reiji entered the dining hall he was met with what smelled like scrambled eggs.
He saw that Lord Fujioka was eating his meal alone at the long table.
"Where is everyone?"
Reiji asked.
"Either asleep or they already ate their breakfast."
Answered Lord Fujioka.
"I'll be taking my leave after breakfast. I want to visit that village I was protecting only to forget about it so easily."
Reiji spoke while he walked over and sat in the closest chair to Lord Fujioka.
He picked up his spoon and started eating.
"Do you have to eat everything with a spoon?"
Lord Fujioka asked.
"Well, give a spoon a sharp edge and cut into it so it can stab like a fork, and you've got something that you can use to eat anything."
Lord Fujioka sighed.
"Well, when will you be leaving exactly?"
"Right after I eat this, you give me a map and I'll leave."
Lord Fujioka nodded and after they ate their food, he took Reiji to a storage room that had everything, including maps.
Reiji was holding a lantern as they walked through the storage room.
Lord Fujioka gave Reiji a map of the surrounding villages and pointed to where they approximately found Reiji on the map when they first met.
"One of the villages in this area should be it."
Reiji looked at the map for a moment.
"And a map where the…um, knight headquarters or whatever are located?"
Reiji asked, looking up at Lord Fujioka.
"First, it's the royal guards. Second, why?"
"Well, I'm going to be infiltrating their headquarters, so I have to know as much as possible."
Reiji answered.
Lord Fujioka took a moment, staring at Reiji before he walked to the other side of the room and pulled out a seemingly random map without even looking.
He walked back to Reiji and unrolled it. He took a moment before sighing and rolling it back up again.
"Wrong map."
Lord Fujioka said and got the map that was needed.
"I'm not going to say anything because that was really embarrassing for you."
Reiji said, unrolling the map and looking at it.
"Am I blind or is there nothing here?"
Reiji asked. The map didn't have any cities or villages, just rivers, mountains and forests.
"No, I just need to mark the location of the headquarters on the map."
Said Lord Fujioka before taking the map back and walking to the only table in the storage room.
It was covered in papers and what not.
He made some room, took an ink and quill and marked a point on the map with zero hesitation.
"Are you sure you marked the right place? I hope I'm not going to find myself in some spot named Reiji's execution."
"Now you're just being dramatic. This is the place and that's 100 percent certain."
Said Lord Fujioka before handing Reiji the map and a pouch that's used for storing maps that was on the table.
"Thanks, my best guess based on how far I travelled before you found me is that it's probably a day or two long trips."
Said Reiji while he rolled up the map and put it in the pouch.
"You're going to have to hunt, but let's pack you something to eat and drink for a short while."
Lord Fujioka then walked towards the kitchen and Reiji followed him.
Lord Fujioka entered the kitchen while Reiji waited outside.
After a moment Lord Fujioka came out of the kitchen with a bag.
"Bread and a cooked steak. Because it's cooked, all you have to do is heat it up over a fire when you take a break."
"So that's what took you so long, you were cooking the meat. Thank you."
Reiji said in a flat tone as he took the bag.
"Keeping the bread dry will be tons of fun. I think I should have everything I need. I'll see you later I guess."
"Stay safe, Reiji."
Those were the last words that Lord Fujioka said before Reiji left, the bag of food slung over his shoulder.
Reiji walked out of the door and quickly looped around the mansion, walking towards a spot right below the balcony to his room.
He cleared a small area from the snow and placed the bag down, making sure the bag wouldn't be covered in it.
He then climbed up to the balcony, using the architecture of the building to find the smallest possible grip points. His room was on the second story of the Mansion.
When he reached the railing of the balcony he held onto it for a moment before sighing, taking a moment to relax before climbing over it.
Kicking open the glass door that had a wooden frame, he walked in, taking the blueprints to the royal guard's headquarters from his room.
He then rolled up the blueprints and put them into the pouch and then jumped back down.
Even though he was high up, the landing was smooth and without any pain.
He put the pouch diagonally across his chest so he wouldn't have to hold it with his hand and put the bag over his right shoulder.
And just like that, he was on his merry way.
The journey wasn't an easy one. The cold didn't affect Reiji in almost any way if he wasn't exposed to it for long but that's why he did have to make stops to warm himself up.
After the first day of travel he had to hunt for food, but he didn't take his bow, thinking he was fast enough to catch a deer, but he wasn't or at least he couldn't move properly in the uneven, snow-covered terrain.
Crafty Reiji solved this problem by making a spear and managed to startle a deer at best, since he wasn't used to throwing spears without the aid of luck.
After two days he was nearing the village, his camp was near before he went out to search for the Frost people. Who knows how long ago that was?
Before that, he actually found a different village but didn't go there for food nor water because who would accept a stranger from the woods?
He was wet, a little cold and hungry. The pouch with the map and blueprints was in the bag that once carried food but now it acted like a protective layer.
Approaching it from the forest that surrounded it, he saw the entire village when he left the forest.
He froze when he saw it. Ruins. That was what remained of the village. The Frost people must've been behind this.
They were always trying to get past him so they could go down that pathway. The only safe way of going down that large cliff near the village.
When he left, they did so and burnt everything down, probably.
He walked closer and saw that the bodies were almost fully buried under the snow.
A few limbs were peeking out here and there.
He walked into the centre of the village and cleared the snow off of a piece of burnt wood with his shoe.
"Do you know why no one has noticed this village being destroyed and everyone in it killed?"
Reiji asked seemingly no one.