Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 141. Unexpected Variable.
“Nice little thing,” Raphael said with a content smile, then as the first one pulled his piece of the metallic sigil away. The other four did the same right afterwards, then seated themselves more comfortably. “It will definitely be nice to put it back together in a few years after we separate in the Holy Union. But… something’s still lacking,” he pointed out while glancing at the piece of metal in his hand. If they could just attach more importance to it, then it would be perfect. The only question was whether those four would find what he had in mind to be a good idea.
“Hooh.” Laien smiled playfully. “And why do I have a feeling that you came up with a solution to that?” he asked with a laugh. Indeed, he needed to agree with Raphael. He liked his own idea of the Five-Leaf Clover sigil, but it didn’t change the fact that there was no important fact or event attached to it. Thus, even if they decided that it represented their friendship, it would still feel somewhat empty. As for the way to solve it… he had a guess or two as to what Raphael was thinking about.
“I do,” Raphael admitted, though he added without delay. “It’s a bit of a pompous thing though, so if you guys don’t like it, don’t hesitate to say it.”
“You think we would?” Laien asked wryly, then exchanged a glance with Mikaela and chuckled alongside him. If the two of them were to hesitate to speak their own opinions, then would there be anyone in the world who dared to speak their mind?
“True, you wouldn’t,” Raphael agreed and laughed, his expression becoming more relaxed. “Well, how about making a vow? It doesn’t need to be anything complicated,” he proposed, but he didn’t elaborate any further. Before doing so, he wanted to see what the reaction to this idea of his would be. After all, even he thought that it was a bit stiff, so he couldn’t tell whether the carefree-types like Mikaela or Laien would find it likable or not.
“Seems interesting,” Laien said straightforwardly. “But simply agreeing on the content of the vow of making it would be too boring,” he said with a laugh and followed up with his own suggestion without delay. “We each have one piece of the sigil, so how about we all make one vow for all of us to live by starting from the youngest and going to the oldest?”
There appeared to be no need for any words to be exchanged as everyone smiled as they looked at each other’s faces. By the looks of it, none of them was going to oppose the idea, but there was just one little problem. To be precise, it was easy for them to tell who was the youngest and the second youngest amongst them, but they hadn’t exactly shared more information about their ages apart from the numbers.
“When were you two born?” Raphael asked with a laugh. The three of them were all twelve, but who was the oldest one of them?
“Eighth day of the seventh month,” Laien revealed lightheartedly. “I’ll be thirteen soon,” he added with a laugh. There wasn’t much of a tradition of celebrating a birthday in the south and he didn’t remember his parents holding any parties for him or Siana either, so to him, it was just a date to keep track of. Maybe because of that he never really bothered to ask about the other’s exact birthdays.
“I’m a bit younger,” Yin said with a slight smile. “The fifteenth day of the eighth month,” he added and exchanged an amused look with Laien. Somehow, they never even tried to find out which of the two of them was older. Maybe because they didn’t find it to be important or maybe because neither of them came from places that celebrated a birthday, but they only learned this piece of information about each other at this moment.
“I’m the oldest then,” Raphael said with a laugh. “It’s the first day of the seventh month for me,” he said straightforwardly. By the looks of it, he would be the last one to propose a vow according to Laien’s suggestion, huh? He really needed to think about something unique enough just so his idea wouldn’t be snatched early by one of the other four.
“Whew.” Out of the blue, Mikaela let out a sigh of relief, causing the other four to glance at him curiously. “No, I was just relieved that we didn’t miss all of your birthdays. We should even be able to celebrate Raphael’s too since it’s still two weeks away,” he said with a happy smile. Comparatively speaking, the Ruishi Federation was much safer and far more stable than the rest of the world, so it wasn’t a surprise that a child’s birthday came to be celebrated every year in here. Thus, Mikaela very much looked forward to preparing some nice presents for his three older friends.
“And what about you two?” Yin inquired and sent a glance towards Mikaela and Arslan. Since they were sharing their birthdays anyway, so they should get everyone’s.
“It’s early in the year,” Mikaela said and chuckled a little. “It’s the second day of the second month,” he added, knowing that he wouldn’t get to have a party of his while the five of them were still together. It was a bit of a pity, but there wasn’t anything he could do to help it.
“Same for me,” Arslan said calmly. “It’s the tenth day of the third month,” he said and exchanged a smile with Mikaela. At the very least, they wouldn’t be alone in the group that ‘didn’t get to celebrate their birthdays’, so it was a consolation of a kind.
“Mm,” Laien nodded contentedly. “Do you guys need some time to think or can we start right away?” he asked, putting his piece of the sigil on the carpet in front of him.
“I’m good,” Arslan replied with a bright smile and without waiting, put his piece of the puzzle in the middle of their circle, further in than Laien placed his own. “We will always be friends, no matter what,” he said straightforwardly, seeing his vow to be a fairly simple and lighthearted one. However, even though he himself didn’t realize it, his vow carried a far deeper meaning behind it, one which only the three older of the boys came to think about but didn’t comment on.
“I’ve got mine, too,” Mikaela said eagerly and put his piece of the Five-Leaf Clover in the middle. “We will never lie to each other. Keeping secrets is fine, but we won’t lie,” he said resolutely. If there was one thing he could say he hated with absolute confidence, it was lying and the people who told those lies. Just like his mother had taught him, he also thought that both normal lies and white lies were to be abhorred. And as it seemed, the other four found his vow to be a great one, too.
“My turn then, huh,” Yin said with a calm smile. As far as he could tell, the pattern so far was for everyone to make a vow out of what was the most important part of the concept of friendship for them. However, his own feelings were probably a bit different compared to theirs. After all, if he ever needed to choose between Laien and any other the other three, he would unhesitatingly choose to stay by Laien’s side. Thus, when all five of them were concerned, the part that was the most important to him became obvious.
“When one of us finds himself in trouble, the other four will do everything in their strength to help,” he said unhurriedly, weighing his words far more seriously than Arslan or Mikaela. As long as the five of them remained friends, as long as the vow put forth by Arslan remained standing, he would adhere to his own words. However, if one day a crack appeared in their friendship, he wouldn’t remain neutral. In the end, it was only Laien that occupied a special place in his heart. It could be said that he was connected to the other three through Laien, so if that link was ever broken, the friendship between the five of them would be very unlikely to continue.
After Yin added his piece of the sigil, Laien sighed secretly. He couldn’t help but be influenced by Yin’s mood, what caused his own attitude to turn more serious. “If at any time in the future…” he began saying as he pushed his metallic piece forward. “If one of us is killed, the others will avenge him and slay everyone responsible for what happened,” he said sternly, causing the already relatively heavy atmosphere to turn even heavier. Yet, as he looked at his four companions one by one, he received a nod of confirmation from each one of them.
“And the fifth one,” Raphael said with a calm smile, thinking that it would be good to shift the direction they were going to a brighter one. “As much as we can, we will look out for each other. We will make sure that the five of us all can lead happy and satisfying lives,” he stated and added the final piece of the Five-Leaf Clover into the circle, then used a little bit of spiritual energy to push them all together into one whole and seamless sigil.
With a quiet chuckle, Laien reached out with his hand and using his Qi, he forced out a drop of blood from the tip of his finger, which fell on top of the sigil. “I vow,” he said with a calm smile. Just like Raphael mentioned earlier, it was somewhat too pompous, but since the mood was right, he didn’t mind going through with it to the very end.
“I vow,” Raphael said while suppressing a laugh and did the same thing, letting a drop of his blood fall onto the sigil. He didn’t expect Laien to push this kind of an ending, but he needed to admit that it was exactly something up his alley.
“I vow,” Mikaela said with ill-hidden excitement and skillfully added a drop of his blood to the mix.
“I vow,” Yin said calmly, the stoic expression and the slight smile on his face making it hard to tell what he was thinking as the drop of his blood fell onto the sigil.
“I vow.” And lastly, Arslan took out a small and think blade with which he cut his finger, adding the fifth drop of blood to the mix.
With the vows made, the five of them sat as they were in silence, looking at the sigil on top of which the five drops of blood slowly mixed. In somewhat of a daze, they all fell deep into their own thoughts, both and what they just did and about the future entailed by their choice. Each of them had different concerns, but at this moment, they five of them shared one similar assumption in their hearts; that they were glad to have met and become friends. Even Yin, who was the most reserved about their relationship, came to share this point of view with everyone else.
Then, perhaps by a random chance or perhaps due to the chain of choices and actions the five of them had made, in front of their very eyes, the five drops of blood sunk into the metallic sigil. Stunned, the five of them observed how the originally metallic sigil started turning crimson-red. Before they could express their shock, they sensed a peculiar aura spread from the now blood-red sigil, one that caused their stirred emotions to mysteriously calm down within mere seconds.
Yet, the mysterious aura disappeared soon afterwards, leaving only the crimson-red Five-Leaf Clover sigil on the carpet.
“What is…” Laien murmured and just to make sure, he tried pulling his piece of the sigil out, which indeed came out easily. “Did our blood cause that? How did it happen?” he asked aloud, looking at the sigil with wide open eyes. He had a feeling that even if they tried to replicate this event, they wouldn’t be likely to get the same results… though to begin with, he had no idea what those results were.
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“It’s not normal,” Raphael said while shaking his head slightly. “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening and you know I am quite interested such unusual occurrences. If you wanted me to guess, this change was triggered by the mix of our blood and by the emotions we were going through,” he elaborated with a cool head. He was amazed, but at the same time, just like the others, he was unusually calm due to the effects of that strange aura the sigil had given off for a brief moment.
“Try putting it together again,” Mikaela requested, wonder if something was going to happen if the sigil was made whole again.
Laien obliged, equally curious to see the results. However, when he joined his piece back into the sigil, the aura from before didn’t return. In fact, apart from the change in color, he couldn’t perceive any other change in the sigil compared to its original state.
“We wanted something special,” Yin brought up with a laugh. “So we got something special, eh?” he asked wryly, thus getting everyone to smile.
“We sure did,” Mikaela said with a cheeky smile and picked up his piece of the crimson-red puzzle. He played with it for a bit in-between his fingers, then put it away into his interspatial ring. He couldn’t explain why, but he had a clear feeling that there was no point experimenting with this sigil right now. Similarly, the other four shared the same unexplained opinion and soon enough, stored their own parts of the sigil in their interspatial rings.
Still, it wasn’t like they lost all interest in this mysterious even all of the sudden, so they proceeded to discuss it. At one point, they even went against the gut feeling all of them had and attempted some tests with the crimson-red sigil, but to no avail. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get the thing to react or change in any way. Needless to be said, they also failed in replicating the phenomenon when they tried. Thus, with all said and done, they had no choice but to leave all their questions unanswered for the time being.
Progressively, they returned to their usual subjects and left behind the topic of the sigil and all the serious matters along with it. They started playing and laughing, at one point their games turning into one big but still fairly careful wrestling match. After all, if they were to contest seriously in a wooden house like this one, they would break it down into pieces in but a few moments.
Spent on playing and having fun, the first half of the night passed quickly. As for the second half of it, the boys spent it meditating on their insights, as per their usual routine. They had been close to doing away with training just this once, but in the end, Laien and Yin’s opinion tipped the scales towards cultivating properly. They would be separating in the morning, true, but giving up on the essential part of their daily training wasn’t a trade-off Laien and Yin were willing to make.
Still, much to Mikaela’s relief, the five of them were able to enjoy each other’s company for the majority of the early morning. It was only three hours after the sunrise when Jasmine walked upstairs and knocked on the door to their room, then when allowed, entered.
“Are you about ready yet?” Jasmine asked with a little smirk. She had been waiting on the first floor for the past two hours, thinking that Laien and Yin would come down when they’ve had enough time to say their farewells to the other three, but it looked like she had been wrong. No matter how long she waited, there were no signs of the two moving… and so, she understood that they wouldn’t come unless she called for them. Still, she didn’t want to simply drag them out with a shout, so she made the effort and came over to pull them out of that room in a gentle fashion.
“I guess so,” Laien replied and laughed to himself. He gave Jasmine an apologetic look, having noticed that she was getting impatient with them. However, he was only slightly apologetic as there had never been a specific time set for their departure and moreover, the time was passing so quickly that he barely noticed when three hours passed after the dawn.
“Say,” Mikaela joined in, wanting to delay the moment of Laien and Yin’s departure by a little bit more. “When are you going to be done with all of that? You said it’s going to take less than two weeks, but how long will it be exactly?” he asked, his gaze shifting between Laien and Jasmine and in the end, stopping at Jasmine.
As for Jasmine, when she saw the cute and innocent look on Mikaela’s face, she couldn’t help but let out a quiet sigh and give in. “You could count it yourself, it’s not hard, but fine,” she said with a helpless laugh and seated herself on the unoccupied armchair. It wouldn’t hurt to spend a few more moments here even if it was pretty much a waste of time.
“Given the terrain,” she began saying, her attitude instantly turning into a teacher-like, lecturing one. “We should be able to keep going at the average of three hundred kilometers per hour. From here to the northern border is seven hundred kilometers or so, then to the southern border of the Bolan Kingdom it’s ten thousand kilometers. This includes the additional roundabout trips we’re going to need to make to avoid Yimar Maar’s patrols and outposts, mind you. Finally, the capital of the Bolan Kingdom is another four thousand kilometers away, what all in all gives us roughly fifteen thousand kilometers,” she summed up one step at a time, though yes, she had a feeling that she was being led around by the nose by Mikaela and doing something entirely pointless.
“The rest is simple,” she said helplessly. She had an inkling that the boys already talked about this anyway, but she couldn’t tell for sure from the expressions they were listening to her with. “Divide fifteen thousand by three hundred and you will get fifty hours. Both ways it will be one hundred hours and at least additional twenty-four hours need to be counted for rest and negotiations. In other words, it’s five full days if everything goes at top pace and without any hiccups,” she concluded, but after she noticed how attentively the boys, and especially Mikaela, were listening to her, she couldn’t fight her tendencies as a teacher and elaborated in more detail.
“As planned, the refugees in the Grand Camp will get moving in two days. Still, getting such a mass of people to get anywhere isn’t easy and it takes a lot of time. Just getting to the northern border here should take them four days. As you can see, we’ve left ourselves a cushion that’s not too large and not too small, so even though a few hours in the morning won’t matter much, we can’t afford to have you guys spend half of today chatting here.”
Faced with the smooth shift from explanation to a gentle reprimand, Laien and Yin laughed and exchanged an amused look.
“How long will it take after that?” On the other hand, Mikaela appeared to be unrepentant as he asked the follow-up question.
“Sheesh,” Jasmine shook her head helplessly. Had she gotten any sign that the boys were merely stalling for time, she would have cut this conversation short immediately. However, not one of them betrayed that they were doing such a thing, so she couldn’t bring herself not to answer. “The tempo will increase once the people leave the mountainous regions of the Ruishi Federation. As the plan goes, they will split into many separate groups of which the majority will head for the Guode Yimarate’s Capital City. The smaller part will include all the children age fourteen and below along with some of their guardians,” she explained, the feeling that she was being made a fool out of intensifying with every passing second.
“The greater part of them will head westwards as they head north, while we will go almost straight north, heading to the Yali Kingdom. I suspect that the adult groups will be able to cross around five hundred kilometers every day while our groups will likely travel slower, crossing three hundred and fifty kilometers a day or so. It’s quite slow considering the distance, but the goal was never to travel all the way to the Holy Union safely, so it’s actually advantageous to us. The main benefit of our plan is that with our White Guard pressing the Guode Yimarate from the south-west, we will be able to disengage and flee back to the Ruishi Federation at almost any time if need be.”
“So those people…” Mikaela mentioned with a saddened look. It wasn’t like he didn’t realize it before, but the plan this time around involved making sacrifices out of the greater part of the eight million people of the Grand Camp.
“Yes,” Jasmine confirmed with a nod. “They are all going to be used by us. I’m not going to paint our plans as righteous, but going back to the bottom line, with us at least a part of them is going to survive. Had we not been involved and they walked on the Guode Yimarate by themselves, only death would await them all,” she said bluntly and without the slightest bit of remorse. In love and war, sometimes it was required to be ruthless! Still, she was quite satisfied with the look of understanding that appeared on Mikaela’s face, so she decided to say a few more words.
“As long as Yimar Maar and the rest take the bait perfectly and assume that Arslan is trying to use the chaos caused by those refugees to take the risk and sneak through to the Holy Union, we can reduce the casualties by a lot. The moment they are ambushed by General Julien’s elites they are bound to sustain heavy casualties. Then, we hope them to send even more people to us after they’ve confirmed that Arslan is certainly there. However, that’s when the horseback reinforcements from the Holy Union are supposed to join. With all of their focus on the south, a few hundred elite riders should find it easy enough to sneak through four or five thousand kilometers and join the battle. Still, that’s the most uncertain part of our plan as it relies on our intelligence network suppressing theirs entirely. We do need some luck to wipe them out, but just winning or retreating is easily done.”
“Gah, you’ve gotten me to blabber so much,” Jasmine said resignedly the moment she finished the explanation. “As you can see, it’s six days for the plan to start and four to five more days for it to end. Thus, a little less than two weeks as it was already said in the beginning. Any other questions?” she asked, thinking that by this point she might as well answer any other inquiries the boys had.
“No,” Mikaela said with a smile and shook his head. “Thanks, aunty,” he said with an innocent smile, genuinely happy that Jasmine went through the trouble of giving them a detailed explanation when he requested her to do so.
“Aunty…” Jasmine’s smile twitched for a second, but she accepted the new title soon afterwards. “It’s not elder sister, but it could have been worse. He is just nine years old, after all, and I do look thirty-something,” she consoled herself. At the very least, she wasn’t called a granny; she would have probably passed away on a heart attack if Mikaela called her so. Thankfully, he probably didn’t know her true age or she could swear he would have done so all the while keeping that infuriatingly cute and innocent expression on his adorable face.
“Okay,” she said with a little sigh and stood up. “If there’s nothing else, then get up you two,” she said while looking at Laien and Yin.
“Umh…” However, just as Laien and Yin also stood up, they head someone land on the roof and clear his throat. “I think we’re in trouble. Get up here and see for yourselves,” the familiar, neutral-sounding voice of Zaban’s rang out within the room.
“Trouble?” Jasmine frowned heavily. She didn’t waste any time and promptly opened the largest window in the room and swiftly pulled herself on top of the roof. She wondered what Zaban meant by saying they were in trouble, but when she looked around and noticed the problem, she fell silent, for a period of time looking as if she had turned into a stone statue.
“What’s going on?” Laien asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer and joined Jasmine on the roof, soon followed by the other four boys. As they looked around, they couldn’t really find anything wrong at first, but then, when they noticed that the Grand Camp was unnaturally rowdy, the realization hit them like a ton of bricks.
The streams of people across all streets of the Grand Camp, the thousands upon thousands of carriages and even more horses. This sight could only mean one thing.
“The Grand Camp…” Laien muttered. “They are moving out now? Why? It’s only been six days!” he exclaimed anxiously. Was their whole plan going to go down the drain just like that? Was it the Prophet’s doing? If he recalled, there had been something about the people of the Grand Camp leaving in six days, the ‘Six-day Prophecy’ or something like that, but…!
“Don’t tell me,” Jasmine clenched her first, her train of thought following the same lines as Laien’s. “He agreed to go with Arslan, but he never actually said he’s going to set out in eight days!” she growled in a low voice, recalling all the words she had exchanged with the Prophet in the past days. Yes, he had never explicitly stated that he would lead the people out in eight days, he had merely repeated that they will go with Arslan! Damned him!
“Word games,” she hissed through her teeth. She was ready to go and strangle that Devil-ravaged sorcerer to death! In a matter of such a grand importance, the excuse of ‘I never said that’ wouldn’t fly no matter what! However, just as she was about to jump off the roof and get Julien and the Grand Elders to help her in the attempt to halt the movement of the refugees by any means possible, the figure of the Prophet entering their encampment entered her and everyone else’s eyes.
The man walked slowly, looking to be completely relaxed. Moreover, right after their gazes fell on him, he looked up and smiled, almost as if he had been expecting their group to be standing there.