On the way Kaden considered for a while, if he should go find some random people, kill them and then Devour them. Eventually he discarded that idea. He was not so desparate that he would Devour some weaklings that didn't really give him much materials to work with, even if he did decide to consume them.
No, Kaden repeated to himself that he should be patient. Now was the time to not make noise!
Keeping that in mind, Kaden avoided population centers that were on his path. He did not want to be seen at all by anyone until it was absolutely neccessary. He wanted to be hard to find. Even if someone did come looking for him, they would have no idea where he had gone.
That is unless they used same method as Nelsen had. Kaden figured Nelsen had to have come relatively close for the tracking tool to detect him and have something to attune it to his mana. Therefore Kaden wasn't really worried.
Making himself disapear was perfectly possible and, if he managed it, he wouldn't come out until he saw fit to do so.
If things didn't change for some unexpected reason, his destination was the island of Brit. It was rather remote location within the human territories. A perfect place to hide.
As far as Kaden knew there weren't even very strong beasts there. At least not on land. Strongest ones were about his level. It was possible he could kill them for cultivation materials too, if they decided to mess with him. Going to the sea was absolutely out of question, though. The island was next to a Atla sea. Some of the most powerful sea beasts inhabited that area. It was lucky thing they prefered to stay there. With their power they could easily go around land too, if they so desired. Whatever reasons they had, Kaden was happy those reasons existed.
The distance from mainland to the island was not that long. Technically speaking, it would be possible to cross the distance, even if you were weakling who was not even at Channel Opening, but you didn't want to do that. That is if you wanted to live.
Just like most large bodies of water, there were underwater beasts in there that were extremely difficult to fight against. Kaden himself wouldn't be very good in water even in best condition due to his affinity to fire and wind.
"It means I must arrange myself way to get over", Kaden surmised. "It shouldn't be difficult."
It is likely that at least some merchants should be hauling their goods over one way or another. Likely gliders. They were fast and didn't even touch water. It was relatively safe.
Kaden looked into his bag. He did have crystals he expected to be able to use to pay for a trip across.
It took about two weeks for Kaden to reach a coastal town on the shoreline. It was rather lengthy time, but there were reasons. This was yet again due to his wounds, but also that he was being extra careful.
Speaking of his internal wounds. At a point Kaden tried to speed up a bit, but as soon as he put a bit too much strain on his internal formation, he suddenly lost control of his mana. After vomiting blood for a bit, Kaden firmly decided he would have to heal perfectly first before he tried anything requiring power closer to his limits.
Kaden wore his mask to hide his features a bit in the town. That by itself wasn't that strange. Apparently passing hunters intending to hunt some underwater beasts were not that uncommon and some of them looked relatively odd. Kaden made sure that people would think of him being one of such people.
He made up a story that he believed that there was greater bounty at the Brit side and was looking for someone to take him over.
Eventually he was pointed towards some merchants just as he had expected. Then again the merchants were not the only ones seeking passage across. It seems some mercenaries and adventurers in general liked to go there too. Brit also often had both people from Sacronan and Saint Empire around and it was questionable who held the island. No one obviously asked the elves anything. At any rate there were many different kinds of people. One extra that was slightly odd wouldn't be that strange.
At any rate, since no one really kept the island in control, it was in many ways almost neutral area. There were not too many strong beasts on land and whatever humans who lived there didn't really have any allegiances. That made it so that, with luck, one could discover opportunities that didn't exist elsewhere or were difficult to find. Obviously such opportunities involved their own dangers.
All of this was fine to Kaden. He wasn't planning on taking too big risks until he was fully healed and capable of dealing with the potential problems. Afterall his main purpose was to hide. As for the potential exploration of the remnant, that could take some time.
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Either the remnant had been discovered and looted a long time ago or no one knew of it and was pretty well hidden... possibly even inaccessible. If he were to encounter Emina, he was going to have some exploration first and determine best course of action. All of that would take time. This time Kaden was not in a rush to get into the remnant, he could take his time. Nothing was pushing him to act quickly.
Quietly Kaden made his way to the merchants glider. They were rather big and more useful for trading purposes due to larger storage, but they were probably slower than the military ones Kaden had used before. Additionally he wasn't the only one to attemting to cross over.
During the crossing he discreetly asked a few questions, if merchants or the travelers had seen strangely dressed woman carrying a musical instrument. This proved to not give him any leads. Whether it was because they wouldn't know or remember yet another traveler or didn't wish to speak when they didn't have to, was something Kaden couldn't really determine. Emina originated from Brit anyway. She might have her own ways ot pass unnoticed.
"I'm now at Brit", Kaden muttered to himself as he stepped off the merchant's glider with rest of the passangers that had come along. "No one should know I'm here. If someone is going to investigate Nelsen or whoever sent him after me comes looking, it will take a very long time until I'm found."
Not that he was certain such thing would happen to begin with.
Kaden left the harbor area quietly. The supposed remnant's location was not that far, but Kaden planned on finding a place to stay before going further in. It was apparently an area where there were ancient ruins. That included lots of adventurer's and treasure seekers. He would be able to pass through without drawing much attention while giving a cursory look.
There would also be people from both Sacronan and Saint Empire going around. Kaden did not wish to be discovered by either of them. One side would try to kill him and Kaden did not want anyone from Saint Empire to know he was there.
"That is until I'm fully healed", Kaden continued his thoughts. "I might be able to hunt some Sacronan's people, if I'm careful. I'm not entirely sure how big operations they do here."
He was more familiar with saints. Even so, Brit hadn't been his major concerns until recently. He only knew there were enough people to keep eye on Sacronan's and keep things in check. All this obviously depended, if one of the sides had the island in control or not, but right then neither did.
Kaden avoided areas with more known ruins. Most people would be there, but he did want to pass by the area where the specific remnant he was looking for was supposed to be at. If he wanted to go anywhere around the remnant, he had to go in with more discreet manner.
There were a lot of ruins and Kaden quietly sneaked around within. He didn't really run into people, but there were signs of people passing by. In fact, as far as Kaden could determine, the amount of people passing was rather large too and they had heavy tools with them.
"What is this?" Kaden frowned and decided to be even more careful.
Soon his questions were answered quickly. It seemed to be soldiers from Sacronan!
"What are they doing here?" Kaden thought as he observed from far away. With his eyes he could see everything clearly from a very safe distance.
They had walled off a section of the nearby ruins. They were digging and trying uncover something. There even apeared to be members of Sacronan's church around.
"Damn", Kaden cursed after a while. "That area should be where the remnant is. How is it that they happen to be here just at the same time? Even here, this is still closer to Saint Empire. They aren't here accidentally."
First the Saint Empire's church sends someone like Weils to a remnant to apparently collect information. Then, as it happens, that remnant contained link to another. Then perhaps with some surprise, Kaden now found Sacronan's church messing around with the said another remnant.
"It can't be just a coincidence, righ?" Kaden pondered the matter. "Something is up."
Whatever the case was, this posed problem to Kaden. There was no way he could get past the soldiers from Sacronan. He had even noticed a few people who he assumed were at Condensation stage. Their presence wasn't that surprising. They had to have some force available since they were so close to Saint Empire.
"Whatever they are doing, they don't seem to have had much success", Kaden thought after he made some more observations. They were digging into the ancient ruins. "Perhaps the remnant has indeed been hidden so no one has found it before. This poses a question, though. How did they come to know of it now?"
Kaden himself had been lucky to meet the robot and that it had decided to help him. With exception of Emina and Kaden, the 7RU-MC should be the only one to know. Even if Emina had been captured and randomly interrogated by Saronan military, they wouldn't have had time to get to Brit this soon with this much equipment around. It was just a few weeks. Roughly same logic applied to the robot too.
They had to have been there for months already.
There were a lot of questions, but Kaden was unable to answer any of them. He pondered for a while, if he wanted to discard his plans of hiding and inform saints about it. This would allow Kaden to foil whatever Sacronan and their church was doing. He could watch saints butcher them and get benefits from revealing such information.
"No", Kaden finally decided. "Another chance for me does not come again any time soon. Besides, if I can keep observing them over time, I might gain information I wouldn't otherwise get."
Arranging deaths of some random group from Sacronan was not that important. Whatever they were doing might even prove to be harmful to saints. There was no benefits to be gained other than some contribution to saint military. There surely was no loyalty involved or anything silly like that.
Yes, observation was better choice at least for the moment.
Kaden left his perch. He was going to continue with his previous plan to make some distance between the ruins. Hide and heal. Now there was just another part added to his plan and that would be the observation of the remnant and whatever Sacronan was doing there. They didn't seem like they were going to achieve anything soon so he felt that could even wait.
Regardless, Kaden was feeling rather curious. If it was not a coincidence, what could move both churches on both sides to some seemingly random remnants?