The rest of the day was spent trying to find an inn to sleep. Well, to sleep, and to brush Nix' tail, actually. I couldn't just not do that. According to Nix, my technique had improved ever since I had begun to read the guide on taking care of fox tails that was pretending to be my blessing's description. I wasn't even close to being done with reading it either.

  Right, Order had mentionned that the blessing somehow prevented people from realising that I was half dragon. I hadn't really thought about why most people never brought it up, but that did make sense.

  Actually, how had I not thought about this before? It seemed like an extremely obvious issue, now that I thought about it. I had been treating my transformation as if it was completely normal, but it really wasn't. I was pretty sure that I should have cared about waking up one day with extra limbs. I couldn't understand why it felt so natural.

  I knew that draconic instincts had changed my reaction to some things, but how much? Was I really still myself?

  Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well that night. I eventually ressorted to taking some coins out of storage to use as a pillow. I wasn't too happy about having to rely on that to calm down, but I had to sleep somehow. It worked, thankfully.

  I was woken up the next morning by an energetic foxgirl who wanted to go solve the bandit mystery as fast as possible. A quick look out the window revealed that the sun had barely risen over the horizon.

  "Come on, we have to go find some bandits!" (Nix)

  "Yeah, sure, let me just get up and eat something." (Dragonfly)

  There was not point in trying to dey our investigation. Besides, I could use something to take my mind off of the whole existential crisis thing. I would be fine if I just didn't think about it. Yeah.

  As we were making our way out of the inn, I overheard a conversation between the innkeeper and another man that I didn't recognise.

  "Have you heard? Apparently the diplomatic delegation from another continent came back from their visit of the Church's holy sites yesterday." (Man)

  "Yeah, apparently they wanted to learn more about our culture before getting down to business. I wonder what they want." (Innkeeper)

  That's all I heard before exiting the inn. I could have stayed to learn more, but it wouldn't have been very subtle. Besides, I wasn't just going to act like some spy. I was clearly above that.

  Once we were out of the capital, we began to run at a decent pace to get back to where we had encountered bandits before. This was much faster than when we were traveling with the caravan. After only three hours of running, Nix spotted bandits hiding in tall grass by side of the road. Luckily, they hadn't seen us yet.

  "We have to observe them to discover all of their secrets! Maybe they will accidentally reveal who their boss is!" (Nix)

  Despite Nix's less than quiet decration, none of the bandits moved an inch. Actually, they were all as still as corpses.

  "Nix, you are supposed to be quiet when trying to be sneaky..." (Dragonfly)

  "It's fine. They haven't heard me. See?" (Nix)

  The bandits that were trying to hide in the tall grass were all ying down on the ground, unmoving. If I hadn't known any better, I'd have assumed that these were actually dead bodies.

  Wait, were they actually all dead? I couldn't see them breathe at all. There was no way for them not to have noticed us by now either.

  "Hey, Nix, these might actually just be corpses." (Dragonfly)

  "What? No way! I don't want to have to search for more bandits. Let me go check!" (Nix)

  With that, my friend walked closer to the bodies. When she got within a couple meters, all of the bandits stood up, ready to strike.

  "Yay, they are alive! We don't have to find more! Hey, stop trying to stab me!" (Nix)

  Just like that, we were fighting for our lives again. To be fair, there were only three bandits and Nix had dispatched two of them by the time I got close, so it wasn't exactly a difficult fight.

  "Wait, let's try to capture the st one alive." (Dragonfly)

  Summoning my sword out of storage, I sshed towards the bandit in an attempt to disarm it. It was even easier than expected as the bandit's sword went flying out of it's hands on the first try. The rest of the fight was as easy as just pinning it to the ground. It didn't stop trying to fight back even when unable to move, for some reason.

  "We won!" (Nix)

  "Yes, but could you help me out now? This bandit won't stop trying to get free. Doesn't seem like it's pnning on saying anything either." (Dragonfly)

  "Alright, I'll try to see what's wrong with him. Time for the legendary detective Nix to investigate!" (Nix)

  After several minutes of poking, Nix finally came to a conclusion.

  "Well, he's really cold and doesn't have a pulse. I think that he's dead." (Nix)

  While I was way stronger than our captive, trying to keep something way rger than me in pce was still tiring. That issue was amplified by the fact that this specific annoyance would just not stop resisting.

  "Are you sure? Because st time I checked, dead people weren't this lively." (Dragonfly)

  "Yep! He's dead!" (Nix)

  With that, Nix stabbed the bandit in the head, ending it's struggles.

  "..." (Dragonfly)