Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 100. A Different Approach.
“Stop delaying and pick already,” Arslan said with a laugh, grinning at Albert who was so nervous he was sweating visibly. “It’s not like it’s such a hard choice, you only have two cards to pick from,” he mentioned carefreely, watching how Albert moved his hand between one card and the other in an absolutely futile attempt to read his expression.
“Is it this one…?” Albert asked with a little groan but discovered absolutely nothing from Arslan’s face and body language. He wasn’t sure if it was because Arslan was so good at hiding his thoughts or if he was so bad at reading them, but he was ready to lean towards the former explanation. Out of the ten plus games of old maid they had played, Arslan and Lea didn’t lose even one and as for him, he lost once and by the looks of it, he was about to be stuck with the old main again.
“Ah, whatever. This one!” he grit his teeth and pulled out one of the two cards from Arslan’s hand, then quickly took a look at it… and before he could stop himself, he grimaced, making it obvious to everyone what he had gotten. “Ugh.” Not too pleased, he groaned and shuffled the five cards in his hand. Thankfully, it was still early in the game, so he had a high chance of getting rid of this damned card. Still, it didn’t feel good to see the old maid in his grasp… especially as he imagined what kind of punishment game this round’s winner would come up with for the loser.
However, just as he was about to turn and face Luca, someone knocked on the door and entered right afterward, without waiting for a response.
“Little master,” Reian said calmly. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I will need you to come with me for a bit,” he said with a serious look on his face.
“Okay.” Arslan nodded. He could tell that Reian’s attitude was more serious than usual, so he threw the last card in his hand down and didn’t ask what it was about. “Sorry, everyone,” he apologized briefly and followed Reian out of the house. He didn’t even stop for a second to confirm whether his companions were a bit annoyed to have him leave so suddenly or not, and the reason for that was simple. He had a clear guess as to why Reian asked him outside all of the sudden.
“Is it a message from father?” he asked impatiently the moment they got outside. Although he hadn’t been showing it, he had been worried about his father this whole time and had those stressful thoughts in the back of his head. He couldn’t wait to confirm whether his father was fine or not.
“Yes,” Reian replied briefly. “We will talk inside. I don’t know anything yet either, so let’s hurry,” he said and quickened his pace, heading toward the sturdy building which Jasmine brought out from her interspatial ring a moment ago. The risk of someone reading their lips from a hidden spot was negligible, but they had all agreed it wasn’t worth taking given the importance of the news that was being brought.
“Okay,” Arslan responded simply. After a few strained steps, he gave up on following by Reian’s side while walking and started jogging at a leisure pace. He could see where they were going to and they were only a few hundred meters away from that building, but Reian appeared to be so impatient that he didn’t even notice that he forced him to start running… or maybe he noticed but wanted to already get over there and thus ended up not paying it any attention.
A few moments later, the two of them entered the sturdy stone-wooden house and went straight to the living room, inside which they were greeted by four people. Naturally, three of them were the remaining White Guards who accompanied Arslan, while the fourth person was a grey-cloaked man.
“Little master Arslan,” the grey-cloaked man bowed slightly while putting a hand to his chest. “I’m glad to see you are alright. When we learned that Nuan and his whole unit disappeared, we all suspected the worst. Thank Heavens we learned that you entered the Ruishi Federation soon after that, before we could deliver the message to your father,” he said and smiled bleakly. At the very least, the heir to Makarash was in a good state. He and everybody from the white Guard wouldn’t have known what to do had they lost both Mustafa and Arslan all at once… and who knows what Mustafa would have done had he learned that Arslan was captured or killed.
“Wait, what?” Jasmine blurted out after a few seconds when her brain took in and comprehended the words she just heard. “Nuan is dead? How many men were assigned to him?” she asked immediately, her face painted with genuine shock. They hadn’t discussed it with Mustafa before leaving the City of Palee, but she was convinced that Mustafa would assign a good portion of the White Guard to trail their little group just in case they found themselves in a huge peril. However, all of them weren’t just killed, but slaughtered so badly that it wasn’t known what happened to them? She could hardly imagine what kind of an army could have accomplished that!
Nuan was one of the youths she had trained personally; in terms of pure combat prowess, he was almost as strong as she, though due to his introverted personality and problems with communicating with his peers he had never made it into the contest for the position of a Lieutenant during his career. On the other hand, he was perfectly suited to undercover tasks like the one he had been assigned to this time; he was dutiful and meticulous, so he would almost never make any careless mistakes and yet… he and his whole unit got wiped out?
“One hundred,” the grey-cloaked man said and shook his head. He was just as astonished as Jasmine and the rest of those present when he had learned of the demise of Nuan and his men. Who wouldn’t be? Defeating a group of one hundred Realm of Heroes experts led by a Lieutenant-level commander was one thing, but killing all of them to the last man? That was on an entirely different level. “Another team of six was assigned to sniff… to research what happened to them, but I don’t think they are going to find much. I and my team saw what we assume to be the area where they fought with their enemies, but we didn’t find anything either,” he reported, very much used to delivering information of any kind.
“Not even notes?” Jasmine frowned heavily. “Those were all elites. They knew that if the situation is hopeless, the highest priority is to take down as many enemies down with you and to leave some hints for us before they die. Yet, you found nothing?” she asked, finding it very hard to believe.
“Nothing,” the grey-cloaked man confirmed. “Hail arrived there before we did and searched the area thoroughly. Whoever killed them must have gotten rid of all evidence.”
“Dangerous,” Jasmine said with a heavy frown and put her hand to her lips. “There are only a few organizations and individuals capable of annihilating such a force in secret. I refuse to believe Yimar Maar could have gotten any of them to join his side, so then… was this Arakar’s doing? Or the Great Prophet’s? The deal must have been only to eliminate the unit guarding little master from the shadows since they wouldn’t have agreed to openly get involved in a war with Makarash...” she speculated aloud, quickly connecting dots and pieces of information with her own guesses.
“We’ve come to the same conclusion,” the grey-cloaked man agreed. No matter what, Mustafa was one of the ultimate monsters of the Starlight Continent and perhaps more importantly, he had amassed a great amount of power and wealth around himself. Reasonably speaking, there shouldn’t be any people willing to make him into a sworn enemy without a very good reason for doing so.
“What of my father?” Arslan asked, unable to remain patient. He didn’t want to sound dismissive of the death of one hundred White Guards and so he had been holding himself back for the last few minutes, but he really couldn’t hold this question in anymore. Yet, when he saw the expression on the grey-cloaked man’s face sink in response to his inquiry, he felt his heart skip a beat.
“I’m sorry, little master Arslan,” the grey-cloaked man said in a pained voice. “I’m far from being the right person to deliver that news, but during the battle two days ago your father’s Qi Origin was damaged by Arakar. We hoped Grand Yimar would be able to recover, but he told us it’s a critical injury… Currently, Grand Yimar is actively using his Qi to keep his Qi Origin from breaking apart, but he won’t be able to keep doing so infinitely,” he informed, expecting to see Arslan break into tears or to lose himself in anger but instead, to his surprise, he saw Arslan purse his lips and clench his fists, then take a deep breath and get rid of most of the tension in his body.
“How bad is father’s injury?” Arslan asked in a tone calm enough to startle the adults, with Reian and Jasmine in particular. Out of those present, the two of them knew Arslan best… and they had fully expected him to be shaken. They didn’t know if they should admire Arslan for keeping a cool head or to be worried about him due to this overly calm reaction of his, though.
“It’s not yet life-threatening, but it’s definitely serious,” the grey-cloaked man answered respectfully, impressed with Arslan’s calm reaction. “Your father managed to stabilize his cultivation at the level of the fifth Realm of Heroes. He told us he expects that he will end up declining one realm each year or year and a half… but if he is forced to fight, he will likely get worse much faster. One all-out fight might be all that’s needed to exhaust him completely and make his cultivation drop out of the Realm of Heroes,” he relayed, telling Arslan and the other four the same thing he and a few other high-ranked White Guards learned from Mustafa.
“I understand,” Arslan said with a serious look on his face. “Did my father send you here with any orders?” he asked preemptively, surprising the grey-cloaked man once again.
“Yes,” the grey-cloaked man said. “After finding you, we were told to report it back to Grand Yimar. The plan is for us to come back here once again and lead you to the meeting point where your father will be waiting with the rest of the White Guard,” he explained without beating around the bush. There was no reason to conceal the plans from the little master or the White Guards in his company, so the thought of concealing the plan until the last moment didn’t even cross his mind.
“…” Arslan nodded, then after thinking for a brief moment, he shifted his gaze toward Jasmine. “Can we really leave like that? Will they let us?” he asked with a clear hint of anxiety in his voice. No matter how he thought about it, since his father was injured and far away, capturing him, his only son, would be the highest priority for their enemies. Would the members of the White Guard they had with them be enough to fend off the enemies as they retreated?
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Jasmine’s expression stiffened slightly. She knew that the answer wouldn’t be pleasant for Arslan to hear, but she answered his question nonetheless. “Going by the previous reports, Arakar is definitely aware of your father’s state. It’s one thing to fight and retreat as one pleases, but to fight while protecting someone…” she paused for a bit and gave Arslan a meaningful look. In the fight against Yimar Furi, she couldn’t exert even a third of her true battle prowess as she needed to protect Arslan above anything else. If Yimar Maar, Aban and Arakar, the three strongest experts on their enemies’ side, were to attack them while they were moving with Arslan… the battle would be beyond tough even if Mustafa was at his peak, much less at the sorry state he was in now.
“What does father intend to do?” Arslan asked persistently. He was already shaken after hearing that his father’s Qi Origin had been permanently damaged, but he didn’t want to see his father sacrifice his last remaining strength for his sake. His father was quite old already, so if he lost his cultivation, he would die within two or three years…! He absolutely didn’t want his father to die so soon!
“It’s just my suspicions…” Jasmine began saying. Truth to be told, she wasn’t sure if she should share those thoughts she had with Arslan. However, as she looked at him and saw how full of stern conviction his eyes were, she couldn’t bring herself to keep him in the dark. “I think your father will split the remaining White Guard in half and have a few hundred of them stay behind and guard your and his retreat to Makarash… no, that’s too idealistic thinking. I fear he intends to trade the lives of the majority of the White Guards he brought with him in order to get you out of here,” she said with a fair deal of confidence. She had known Mustafa for long enough to know how he thought… and it was definitely something she saw him doing. He wouldn’t bat an eyelid when a choice to preserve his White Guard or to save his son was put before him. He would choose to save his son without a second thought, no matter how many lives he would need to sacrifice to achieve that.
“… Will it work?” Arslan asked quietly. The very thought of sacrificing hundreds of White Guards pained him greatly. Had it been before he arrived in Eulene and met Laien and Yin, then spent time traveling with them and experiencing many new things, he would have objected to such a plan the moment it was proposed. Yet… after what they had gone through, after seeing how Laien chose to kill everyone in a village to avoid future trouble, after hearing that his father ordered a large city to be decimated after it betrayed him, after he saw his companions fight with Yimar Furi and his men so desperately many of them almost died… he could no longer bring himself to say that no sacrifices were acceptable to save what was the most important to him. He was still just a young kid, but he was Mustafa’s son. He knew that he couldn’t act on emotion alone, especially not now.
“To be honest, it will be hard,” Jasmine admitted. She measured Arslan up with her gaze, then decided that he was still calm enough to listen to a full explanation. “Arakar is one thing since he will be reluctant to trade his life for Mustafa’s, but Yimar Maar and his Sword of Rala will do their utmost to get rid of both of you here. They will almost certainly engage your father directly, causing his remaining lifespan to deplete. I suspect they already have the Ruishi Federation surrounded, don’t they?” she brought up in the middle and sent the grey-cloaked man a questioning glance.
“It’s as you said,” the man said with a nod of his head. “Grand Yimar and our forces are confined to the coast, while the forces of Yimar Maar took full control over the eastern part of the Faren Yimarate. They don’t dare to trespass the lands of the Ruishi Federation, but they definitely won’t allow little master to leave so easily,” he said and suppressed a sigh. It was one thing for reconnaissance-focused people like him, but those battle-oriented White Guards
“Of course,” Jasmine said with a quiet, self-mocking chuckle. “I will be honest with you, little master. The young talents like Reian will be preserved, but I fear that most of us will die. It would still be easier if we were to just fight and flee… but against Arakar? He might be reluctant to attack your father, but he will fear nothing from us. We will need to break through the entire Faren Yimarate and then make sure that none of them follow the ships through the air. It will be a costly battle,” she explained and let out a silent sigh. This time around, she could very well see herself dying. It was simply too dangerous of a mission to hope otherwise.
“Then shouldn’t we just run? Or stay here?” Arslan asked angrily. Why did his father want to do something so risky? Wouldn’t having him run away secretly and then somehow make his way to Makarash be better? Why face their enemies head-on if it meant sacrificing so many of the White Guard? Why do that… if maybe even Jasmine expected herself to die? “Right, couldn’t we wait for reinforcements from Makarash too? Couldn’t Kundar come here and help us out?” he asked with a mix of anger and helplessness, no longer able to conceal his agitation and nervousness. As mature as he was, he was still but a five-year-old boy. He couldn’t keep up his calm for all that long in a situation like this one.
“The last option is out of the question,” Jasmine said in a teacher-like, reprimanding tone, coincidentally starting Arslan awake from his tantrum. “You should know why if you try thinking about it. What do you think will happen if we leave Makarash defenseless when the news of Mustafa’s wounds spread through Arkaria?” she asked sternly and after seeing the look on Arslan’s face change into one of understanding, she let out a sigh and continued her explanation in a calmer manner.
“Staying here would arguably keep you safe, but you would lose Makarash. Your father wants you to become its ruler, so you can’t expect to spend your life in this country and think it would be okay. No matter how high the loyalty of our people is, not many will put their lives on the line for the sake of an absent ruler… as for running away from here in secret, it would be hard and dangerous. If we are found out anywhere before we arrive in Makarash, we are done. Remember, Yimar Maar isn’t the only enemy your father has in the world… compared to trying to sneak through all the way to our homeland, breaking through with force has a far higher chance of success.”
As he listened to Jasmine, Arslan could only lower his gaze and clench his fists. He thought she was right now that she explained her reasoning… and now that he thought about it, his father would have surely gone with the plan that had the best chance of success. “Is there really no better way?” he asked, having completely given up on arguing the previous points he made. Yet, even though he had given up on those three ideas, he still didn’t want to accept there was no way but to have everyone, including Reian, Jasmine and his father, to risk their lives for his sake when dying was so scarily likely.
Jasmine closed her eyes and thought for a good minute, and so did Reian and the others. The silence was heavy, but Arslan didn’t urge them and waited patiently, hoping that one of them would come up with something better. However, when Jasmine opened her eyes, she merely shook her head. She had even taken ideas like attempting to flee along the borderline of the Forbidden Lands while hoping that whatever lived there wouldn’t kill them, but she couldn’t find a more certain way to succeed than the original, forceful one. After her, Reian, Sirius and Kasha also voiced their lack of ideas in few brief words, causing Arslan to look quite downtrodden.
“When are we going to move?” Arslan asked, attempting to hide how dejected he was feeling but failing to do so.
“It will take us some time to move the information around,” the grey-cloaked man responded. “In three days in the morning. That’s when the plan will most likely commence, but I will return here after I report to your father to make the final confirmation,” he stated straightforwardly.
“Three days…” Arslan said in a low voice, then raised his head, looked the grey-cloaked man in the eye and asked. “Would it make a difference if the plan was delayed by one day?”
The man raised his eyebrows, not having expected a question like this one. “No, it shouldn’t. Anything more than a week would be bad, but one day won’t change anything,” he said confidently, but just to make sure he glanced at Jasmine and Sirius. Those two had accumulated an enormous amount of experience in their lives, so they should be more qualified than him to answer little master’s question.
“He’s correct,” Jasmine confirmed, wondering what Arslan’s intentions were. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about pleading the Ruishi Federation for help, could he?
“Yes, he is right,” Sirius didn’t disagree either. “However, little master Arslan. You can’t tell about anything you learned here to anyone without our permission, do you understand? If this plan leaks out, then even if all of us including your father give up our lives, you might still be captured by our enemies,” he warned, hoping that Arslan wasn’t planning to do anything rash without thinking it through.
“I only want some time to think,” Arslan said at first, but after a few seconds when he actually paid more attention to where his feelings were leading him to, he first looked somewhere to the side, then returned his gaze to Jasmine’s face. He was sure that the plans Jasmine, Sirius, Reian and Kasha thought about encompassed all realistic and logical possibilities… but what if it was something illogical? What if it was… faith, or rather a Prophecy?
“I want to tell Laien and Yin,” he stated, the tone of his voice suggesting that he would be extremely stubborn about it.
“Why?” Jasmine asked simply. “I’m not against it since I’m sure we can trust those two, but I’d like to know what you are thinking about, little master.”
“The Prophecy,” Arslan replied in an equally simple manner, causing the four White Guards who knew what he was referring to, to stare at him in a dumbfounded manner.
“You can’t be serious,” Reian opposed. “Are you telling me you want to get those two to help come up with a plan based on that silly Prophecy? How reckless that is?” he asked in shock. There was no way he would agree to that! Compared to relying on some blabbering that might or might not turn out to be true at best, their original plan had a few higher chance of success.
“That’s why I want to tell them,” Arslan argued. “If they can help us come up with a good plan when using this Prophecy, then wouldn’t it be for the best?”
“There’s no way we-…” Reian began saying but was cut off by Jasmine raising her hand and gesturing him to shut up for a bit. “Really?” he asked grudgingly.
“I’m not saying we will put all eggs in one basket,” Jasmine said with a wry and yet somewhat saddened smile, then smacked Reian in the forehead with one finger. “That’s an approach I didn’t even think about taking. Give it more thought; we don’t need to move immediately. We can try acting around the Prophecy and if it doesn’t work out, then we can go back to breaking through with sheer force,” she elaborated and sent Arslan an impressed glance, thus getting his mood to brighten up by a fair bit.
She hadn’t thought that a day when she was outsmarted by a five-year-old would come, but this time around, her experience ended up working against her. Her brain had cut off anything that seemed unrealistic or unreliable to her, so despite having just learned about the Prophecy, she gave it no thought. On the other hand, Arslan made use of what he knew and brought up an unconventional approach; who knows? Maybe it was just what they needed to turn the tables around.
“… Fine,” Reian conceded discontentedly. Jasmine had a point there, so he couldn’t really refute her. “So, what are you thinking about, teacher?” he asked in a rather prickly manner.
“Nothing much just yet,” Jasmine said with a smile. “We need to research how the previous Prophecies ended up coming ‘true’ before we act. The Capital City of the Guode Yimarate falling doesn’t necessarily mean that its armies will be defeated, now does it? However, there should exist a way for us to make use of those crazed people who are planning to attack it. At the very least, we will be able to divert the forces of Yimar Maar. With some luck, we might preserve most of our people,” she continued, the smile on her face growing brighter the more she thought about the idea and the more options she considered. Yes, as long as they played their hand right, they had a chance to obtain more than just a pyrrhic victory!