After a minute, Patrick put down his tools at the side of the road and returned to the wagon.

"How did it go?" Maya asked. She tried to to be patient but Patrick was gone for a very long time.

"Perfect, we can depart." Patrick answered energetically with pride in his work.

Patrick and Maya finally set off towards the hidden passage. The night was cooling down, a welcome change for Patrick, who had just worked out intensively and was feeling hot. After around five minutes, the wagons arrived at the hidden passage. Patrick left the steel doors open at both ends of the secret passage, allowing fresh air to circulate inside. After they drove the two wagons into the tunnel, Patrick said, "Maya, wait here. I will go remove our tracks."

Patrick first went to Harold and Maya’s house. Using a combination of Earth and Wind element spells, Patrick removed the tracks of the wagon from Maya’s house to Jonathan’s house. Then, he proceeded to keep removing the tracks that were made by the families. In the process, he took care to preserve the tracks that did not belong to their wagons.

Of course, he did not forget to take away the "We are alive" signs from the doors.

After around half an hour, Patrick returned to Maya. He moved the crates back into the stone house, positioning them to one side of the room. After that, they entered the tunnel and closed its doors.

"Divine Spell: Levitate." By recalling the location of the wooden planks and the crates on the floor, he first replaced the wooden planks that concealed the door, then placed some of the crates on top of them. Finally, he closed the doors to the stone house.

Patrick and Maya drove their wagons towards the other end of the passageway. After reaching the surface near the main road, Patrick picked up his tools, erased their tracks, closed the steel doors and hid them away with vegetation.

Before heading out, he made some coffee and shared some with Maya, which prepared them for the drive overnight.

"Good bye, Urie Village." Patrick said with a hint of sadness. "Let’s go, Maya."

"Thanks, Patrick. You must have done more than I could have imagined." From the tree root trunks discarded on the side to removing the tracks, Maya could see why Patrick took so long before their departure.

"Don't mention it." Patrick replied. He was not fond of boasting about his achievements.

The main road branched off in three directions: east, north, and west, with their current path coming from the south. The capital was located to the west of the village. Since the Inquisition Knights and bandits intended to set up an ambush along the western path, Patrick and Maya chose the northbound path as a detour towards the capital. To avoid detection, Patrick used his Night Vision skill to lead the group in the front. Tonight, it was a new moon. Without using a torch or the light orb spell, Maya could barely see Patrick’s wagon under the starlight. So, the wagons moved slowly and quietly.

Eventually, the sky on their right started changing colors, transitioning from purple to blue, and, as if leaving the danger of darkness behind them, the families welcomed sunrise.

They sped up as soon as the sky lit and passed by a village. In order to stay incognito, Patrick and Maya kept quiet and moved along. On the way out of the village to go west, they passed by a horse stable in a farm where its owner was already up and working. Patrick paid him some money to exchange for new horses and for their "privacy." With the new horses, the group picked up their pace. About an hour after they left the village, Henry started crying as his wail pierced the cold morning air.

The moving wagon helped Henry sleep better, causing him to wake up later than usual. When he awoke, he was already very hungry. Patrick and Maya drove into a public camping site next to the road. Then, they created temporary stoves and bathrooms for the children to wash up and to heat up the breakfast.

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To make it more efficient, Nathan and Arielle worked as a team to alternate between feeding Henry and washing up, so that the toddler did not need to wait for his food.

"Thomas, Chana, let’s play tag." Ashley said, seeing that her elder siblings were busy.

"It is almost time for breakfast. Why don’t you play with Chana?" Thomas said, as he was setting up the table. Being twelve-year-old, Thomas had been the big brother in the group.

"Why don’t we play hot hands?" Chana smiled kindly and suggested another game which allowed them to stay close to everyone.

"Ok!" Ashley answered enthusiastically.

Jonathan and Harold were still sleeping under the effects of the sleep spell and the sedating herbal medicine. It was only the third day after they got injured. Even though their wounds had started to close, both men were still suffering from a persistent high fever. Once breakfast was ready, Patrick and Maya cleaned and dressed their wounds and helped them walk to the bathroom. The children greeted their fathers as they walked by the dining table. Nathan and his siblings hadn’t seen Harold in a while, who was a man in his thirties with gentle fatherly Sapphire eyes, messy brown hair from staying on the bed for days, and tanned light brown skin typical of farmers.

"You don’t look so well Harold." Jonathan remarked in pain when he saw Harold in the bathroom.

"Better than you." Harold retorted; and the men smiled.

"You two are lucky to survive the Thousand Blades School's Cross Slash, wielded by a Knight Commander too, no less." Patrick commented.

Both men bore a laceration on their left arm, a vertical gash on their left chest and a horizontal incision across their abdomen. The first strike in the Cross Slash required the user to use both hands to deliver a powerful downward slash, which cut through the men’s shield and injured their left chest and left arm. Due to Jonathan and Harold's experiences as former knights, they were able to avoid the blunt of the attack to prevent a killing blow. The second strike was a forward flying slash that cut the men horizontally from the right to left. If not for the men partially blocking it with their sword and their Stoneskin spell, they would have died on the spot.

"I think they’re even luckier to have you as their surgeon, Patrick." Maya complimented Patrick. "I heard that you were quite famous as a physician."

"Did Emily tell you? It was in the past." Patrick, despite not being the type to brag, grinned to the flatter. "I am just glad I could help."

"This is the third day. I will slightly decrease the amount of sedative today, but the two of you should still try to sleep through the day." Patrick then told his patients. "Sleep is the best medicine."

Jonathan and Harold nodded in agreement and were helped getting back to their beds on the wagons.

When Patrick and Maya were done, Thomas and Arielle had finished washing the dishes and put away the left over food to the freezer in the wagons. Nathan also finished changing Henry’s diapers and washed him.

"Nathan and Thomas. Maya and I will teach you two how to drive a wagon. So that you can help." said Patrick before they headed out again.

"Ok." Thomas and Nathan answered. A driver's license was needed to drive in the city, but no one cared about children driving in the countryside.

"Me too! I'd love to learn as well!" Arielle volunteered with enthusiasm.

"Ok Arielle, come up to the driver seat with Nathan." Patrick said, delighted by Arielle's willingness to help.

Maya smiled warmly at Chana. "Why don't you go have some fun with Henry and Ashley in their wagon, sweetie?"

"Ok, Mom." Chana answered as Thomas sat with his mother on their wagon’s driver seat.

After having another dose of coffee during breakfast, Patrick and Maya continued to drive the wagons. They continued heading north. On the way, they taught Thomas, Nathan and Arielle about driving and occasionally let them drive as a practice. Thomas and Nathan had prior experiences in driving wagons, so they were mainly practicing their driving skills.

With the sun up, the families moved much faster than they did during the night. The landscape was mostly flat plains, which were easy to maneuver. The flowers, insects, breeze and the morning sun welcomed the families as they left danger behind. Before the sun reached its peak, they caught sight of another village. This village, like Urie, had a village wall to protect it from bandits. The family did not go into the village but moved alongside it. Patrick found a farmhouse outside of the wall with horses. He paid their owner to exchange for new horses and to keep their arrival a secret.

With the new well-rested horses, the families headed west from the village. As the children's driving skills deemed satisfactory, Patrick and Maya let them drive while they took turns eating. Then, the adults went to sleep while the children kept the wagons moving until dinner time. Chana babysat Henry and kept Ashley occupied throughout the journey.