Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 78. Seeking The Caravan.
“How far away was the Ruishi Federation again?” In the forefront of the caravan, within the same exclusive carriage as earlier, Arslan asked somewhat randomly while looking out of the window. He then yawned a little but quickly, feeling too relaxed and too lazy to bother covering his mouth.
Jasmine, as the only one not asleep or in the middle of a meditative training, opened her eyes and answered in a soft voice. “I believe we should have traveled around eight hundred kilometers so far, are still two thousand kilometers left.”
“So what, four and a half, five days?” Arslan asked with a sigh. Although Laien and Yin tended to spend a greater part of the day training, he was enjoying himself greatly. It was fun chatting with Johan too, just like it was interesting to talk with Albert or with others when they came by. Those two days had flown by way too fast, before he could even notice. He didn’t want those days and weeks to pass so quickly; he wanted this fun time to last as long as possible.
“It’s only been a day and a half since we left Tuln Village,” Jasmine said with a slight smile, perhaps misunderstanding Arslan a little. “This tempo is decent for a non-military caravan. We should be able to stay in the Ruishi Federation for some time without any trouble, so you all will be able to do more things there instead of just sitting in the carriage throughout most of the day and night,” she assured, trying to cheer Arslan up. Personally, she didn’t mind traveling, but she could imagine that Arslan has had enough of it. First, they had been stuck on the ship for weeks, then they got stuck inside a carriage. For her, this whole time seemed very short, but for a five-year-old, it probably felt quite long indeed.
Arslan glanced at Jasmine, and at the same time at Reian who was training by her side, then sighed a little once more. He didn’t feel like explaining his feelings to Jasmine, so he simply turned his head away and continued to absentmindedly stare at the vast fields of wheat and from time to time, at the vineyards or the small to medium-sized batches of the forest they would ride through. With the sun slowly setting, accompanied by the creaking of the carriage and the sounds of the horses’ hooves, he was beginning to grow more sleepy by the moment. Soon, his eyelids slid down and he dozed off.
---
The next morning, the caravan stopped for a few hours by a large stream, close to a relatively large batch of a forest.
Having gotten close to the cloud-piercing mountain range which separated the lands of Eulene from the Forbidden Lands, they could all appreciate the sight of mountains which seemed to be reaching the sky itself. Still, as amazing as the scenery was, everyone took to their own devices after a few minutes of appreciating it.
“You are going to spar again?” Arslan asked when he saw Laien and Yin begin to head off into the nearby forest.
“Yup.” Laien looked over his shoulder. “What, do you want to watch?” he asked casually. It wasn’t like he and Yin were going all-out in each spar with each other, so there would be no harm in letting Arslan spectate. Since most often, they mainly focused on simply moving their bodies around and clashing physically, there would be little danger of Arslan being hit by a stray attack either.
“I do!” Arslan said so energetically that he caused quite a few people to glance in his direction with curiosity, what in turn made him blush a bit.
“Mhm.” Laien nodded with a smile. However, he merely took half a step toward the forest when he stopped and turned around. Yin did the same thing and those strong experts amongst them all directed their gazes to the northern part of the road. Why were those people in such a hurry?
At this moment, a small caravan was rushing down the road toward them, appearing to be in such a hurry that one would think they were being chased by hordes of demons and devils. This caused Laien, Yin and the rest of those in their group to put their guards up. Were those people being chased by someone, or did they have bad intentions towards them?
Instead of heading into the forest, Laien and Yin ran to the roadside after exchanging a quick glance. Their old guards and the four White Guards of Arslan’s, including Arslan himself, all reacted in the same way and came forward to meet the three oncoming carriages; which at the very least, began hurriedly slowing down after getting close to the point they were standing at.
“O Karta, thank you so much!” the young coachman exclaimed with a sigh of relief the moment. “We assumed you were going through the main road, but we didn’t know how fast you were. Thank God we decided to rush back and check before going along the way to Ruishi Federation,” he said with a smile, for a moment forgetting about anything else as the stress which had been haunting him for the last two days melted down and disappeared.
Baffled, Laien asked straightforwardly without trying to make any guesses. ”You were looking for us? Why?”
The young man looked at Laien, startled awake by his question. He then swallowed heavily; the black-haired boy standing here by the roadside looked like a normal young noble, but if he were to believe the rumors he had heard, then it was exactly this boy who had frozen entire Ulme Village. Moreover, he could vaguely tell that all the adults surrounding those three youths in the front were extremely strong; thus, he couldn’t help but feel rather nervous.
“You must have heard that the Grand Yimar Mustafa changed the law substantially,” he began explaining, growing a little calmer as his two friends approached from the other two carriages. “A day after the law changed, the Grand Yimar Mustafa also sent out a warning saying that any village or city that doesn’t abide by the new rules will share the fate of Ulme Village. Along with the news of Ulme Village’s destruction spreading from Tuln Village, those Ikarians back where we came from lost their usual haughtiness. We decided to make use of the opportunity, sold all we had left, got those carriages and horses, and went looking for your group,” he explained hurriedly. In fact, he spoke so hurriedly that towards the end he began worrying if he wasn’t coming off as way too agitated.
Not really sure how to comment on that, Laien ended up paying more attention to the bunch of youthful faces peeking out from within the carriages. There were mainly young women and children there, but he could spot a few old faces too. “They must have had enough and grabbed the chance to leave, huh?” he mused, not in a hurry to take charge of the conversation.
After two or three seconds of silence, Arslan glanced at Laien. Seeing that Laien had no intention of speaking up, he did so on his own. “You want to join our group then?” he asked, assuming that those people were in similar circumstances to Johan and others from Ulme Village; and rightfully so.
“Y-yes,” the young man replied with a little stutter. He had been focusing on Laien, so he had nearly forgotten that this five-year-old boy here was the Grand Yimar Mustafa’s son. He was pretty sure Arslan was a good person… but in comparison, he was more scared of him than of Laien.
“Sure,” Arslan accepted straightforwardly. It wasn’t a difficult matter to consider, so he didn’t feel the need to ask Laien, Yin or anyone else for his opinion. “You should find Albert and talk with him. He will help you settle down with us, I’m sure,” he said with a smile, choosing his words in a half-conscious way. In his heart, he was aware that he liked Albert more than Sarah because of her remarks towards Laien and Yin, but he didn’t think about it too deeply. As a result, even though Sarah was the official leader of those from Ulme Village, he ended up favoring Albert.
The young man was dumbstruck. Just like that? Without any questions, demands or instructions? Well, there was the ‘instruction’ to go and talk with that whole Albert, but it wasn’t anything like he had expected to happen. At the very least, he had expected to be required to ask, plead, grovel and make promises just like he had grown accustomed to doing. The surprise of none of those things being expected of him was actually so huge that instead of thanking Arslan, he continued staring at him with his mouth slightly open for quite a long while.
“Oi!” One of the other two young men looked at his friend. He was somewhat panicked to see him dazed, but before he could do anything else Arslan spoke again.
“Can we go? I can’t wait to see you spar.”
“Mhm, yeah,” Laien agreed immediately. He was glad to see more people joining them on their way to Ruishi Federation, but he wasn’t concerned with them enough to pay them much attention. Perhaps if he was in a different mood then he would have thought otherwise, but as it was at the moment, he was mainly preoccupied with enjoying his time with the friends and acquaintances he had already made.
As the three youths turned and began leaving, Jasmine called out after them. “Should some of us follow you, just in case?”
Laien looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. “If you want to, go ahead,” he said with a laugh, caring little if there were more spectators or not.
“I’ll be joining you,” Jasmine said merrily and followed after the three boys. Rather than wasting her time in the camp, she preferred to watch something interesting. She knew full well how ridiculous Laien’s magic was, but she knew little about his martial potential, just like she knew little about Yin’s combat strength. She could guess that those two wouldn’t go all-out in a simple spar, but just watching them should give her an idea or two about their skill; and most importantly, it would relieve her boredom. Unlike those younglings she was accompanying, she no longer spent much time training or pondering on her insights; she had long since reached bottlenecks in all aspects of her cultivation, so without a sudden epiphany it would be borderline impossible for her to advance her strength any further.
Naturally, since Jasmine went with the boys, Reian did the same without giving it much thought. It had been only a few days, but he was starting to feel that his teacher was resisting his advancements with less and less conviction; he felt fairly confident that by the end of this little journey, she would finally give in.
On the side, Kasha continued shifting her weight from one leg to the other. She also wanted to see the spar between Laien and Yin, but she couldn’t bring herself to follow the boys or even ask for permission. After all, most of those newly arrived people likely needed medical attention; Sirius would certainly be displeased with her were she to disregard her duties to have some fun.
“Gaah.” Sirius rolled his eyes and shook his head helplessly. “Just go with them if you want to do it so badly. I can handle one hundred people by myself,” he said dismissively and shooed Kasha away with his hand.
“Really?” Kasha blurted out before she could bite her tongue. She had been practicing under Sirius for well over a decade now, but it was the first time he was being so nice to her! Did this old man hit his head a bit too hard when no one was looking or was snow about to start falling in the middle of summer?
“Go before I change my mind,” Sirius said with a snort, causing Kasha to almost jump up. She did, however, bow her head quickly and leave right afterward. “Dear Rala, she has grown up in the body to become a woman but in her mind, she is still just a girl,” he thought while shaking his head. Then, after leading her away with his eyes, he turned to the three young men, who seemed to be rather speechless and stated without beating around the bush.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Those of you who need any kind of healing immediately should come with me. After I’m done with the more pressing injuries, I will move onto the lesser ones until you are all in top shape. Also, be sure to have a chat with Albert like you were told to.”
Once again, the three young men weren’t quite sure how to react. Weren’t those people worried they would bring trouble to their group? Weren’t they concerned if there could be some dangerous individuals amongst the people they were accepting? Moreover, they were so incredibly charitable and nice! They were the total opposite of the nobles and people in power those three young men had met or heard about. It was so amazing it felt a bit… no, it felt quite unrealistic.
In reality, however, it wasn’t all that strange for Laien, Arslan and the others to be relaxed. As far as they were concerned, those newcomers were all extremely weak; the strongest of them were those three young men and they were merely martial practitioners of the third rank. Even Sarah or Albert would be capable of dealing with them alone, much less anyone from their elite group. As such, there was little if any anxiety amongst them about having one hundred people join the caravan.
---
In the blink of an eye, six days passed. During this time, a few major events happened in the southern half of Eulene.
Firstly, the Faren Yimarate had been completely subdued by Mustafa. Of course, there had been many people discontent with the new rules, but those from the rural areas were convinced by the example of Ulme Village and those from the cities trembled before the news of the execution of Yimar Sharu along with many officials and experts of the City of Palee. Thus, even though there was quite a bit of resentment against Mustafa, the order continued to be maintained.
Secondly, the Banxi Yimarate had been completely subdued by the four hundred White Guards Mustafa had sent there. However, even though Yimar Tarkar surrendered himself to Mustafa’s rule obediently, many of his subordinates feared to share the fate of the experts of Palee City. As a result, a large-scale purge had been carried out within Banxi Yimarate, all thanks to the information provided by Yimar Tarkar, who resolved himself to prove to Mustafa that he was worth keeping alive.
Considering that Yimar Tarkar had sold out all of his vassals without regard for the old friendships, Mustafa reluctantly made a choice to keep him around for the time being to avoid strife in the Banxi Yimarate. Although Mustafa wasn’t especially fond of people like Yimar Tarkar, he planned to let the man live depending on his performance in the next few months.
Thirdly… the border between the Faren Yimarate and Guode Yimarate was beginning to grow unstable; the villages and small cities near the border have practically emptied themselves of people and groups of marauders and bandits began appearing in the no man’s land between the two countries. The tension was so high that just one spark would be enough to ignite a conflict.
At this sixth day, just an hour after dawn, Mustafa was heading towards the City of Colne, the south-westernmost city of the Guode Yimarate. He rode on his noble Hisan Horse at the forefront of a column of six hundred white-clothed riders. If one were to take a look at them, he would immediately notice that the insignia of a roaring tiger was present on all of their chests.
What’s more… unlike when the White Guards accompanied Mustafa and Arslan to the City of Palee a little over a week ago, the aura they were giving off was absolutely terrifying. The six hundred all wore stern expressions on their faces, none of them joking around, chatting or smiling like they had done before. Were some unlucky traveler to stumble too close to them without noticing, he would likely suffocate due to the oppressive aura those White Guards were releasing.
As for why the mere pressure that six hundred people were releasing was enough to kill a weaker person…
Six hundred years ago, Makarash had just been taken over by Mustafa. Back then, the newly created White Guard numbered thirty thousand men.
Five hundred years ago, the number jumped rapidly to over one hundred thousand and peaked at one hundred and fifty thousand around four hundred years ago.
Then, at the time of the War of the Tiger and a Cat, two hundred years ago, the White Guard came to number only eighty thousand.
Yet nowadays, the White Guard numbered merely ten thousand experts! One could imagine how high the standards for joining and maintaining one’s position within it were. On top of that, the selection itself was now carried out from within immensely superior experts compared to the state of Makarash when Mustafa had been taking over. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that any member of the White Guard would be able to handle ten experts of the same cultivation level alone. If one were to add the superior coordination and absolute loyalty to this extreme power of individuals, it was likely that White Guard was the strongest officially known organization on the whole continent.
And right now, Mustafa was leading six hundred of those elites. This number might seem insignificant in relation to how numerous the White Guard was, but in truth this one thousand Mustafa brought with him was the cream of the crop. But perhaps most importantly, there were five lieutenants present within that one thousand, each of whom usually commanded one thousand other members of the unit. Each and every one of the ten lieutenants of the White Guard was ridiculously powerful; four of them were currently accompanying Mustafa, while the fifth one, Jasmine, was traveling with Arslan.
Mustafa and those six hundred experts… they were a mighty force, but despite that, Mustafa opted to act with caution. He didn’t predict the events in Eulene devolving to this point so quickly, so he had only taken one thousand elites with him. Because of that, he was forced to be more careful than usual; if they were ambushed by a huge army, then even though they were likely to emerge victorious, they would need to pay a heavy price to achieve it. Obviously, Mustafa wasn’t willing to sacrifice the members of his precious White Guard in such a stupid manner.
At one moment, an eagle flew down from the sky and flew directly to Mustafa. The magical beast landed on Mustafa’s extended arm, waited for him to remove the interspatial ring attached to its leg, then glanced at Mustafa, waiting to see if another one would be given to him or not.
“Fly.”
When it heard Mustafa say so, the eagle jumped into the air and flapped its wings. It flew along the road for a few hundred meters before ascending rapidly, soon to disappear from the sight of even most martial masters.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything strange,” Mustafa murmured as he read through the reports of the men he had sent out to scout around and to guard the border. “There doesn’t seem to be any danger approaching Arslan either,” he mused, though for some reason he couldn’t help but feel restless. Was there something he was missing? The Banxi Yimarate had been properly subdued, the Faren Yimarate had been pacified and while it stung to have so many experts flee and join Yimar Maar, it wasn’t all that great of a problem in the large scope of things. Still, he was restless. It had been a long time since he felt like that; as if something dangerous was circling around him, looking for an opportunity to bite. Just where was this feeling coming from?
---
“It is time,” Yimar Furi said sternly. It had been exactly two hours and twelve minutes from the sunrise. “Kuu, you will direct the seven of you. Be sure not to betray our intentions before the time is right. Spread along the border and wait for the signal,” he reminded, hoping that the brunt of the battle won’t be taken by his subordinates. Else, if anything went wrong, they would all be finished.
“I won’t fail you, Yimar,” Kuu replied confidently and bowed his head. He knew the task of leading the army of the City of Masalle had been entrusted to him not because he was the strongest or the wisest, but because he could always keep a cool head no matter what happened. It would be his responsibility to make the calls as the situation at hand developed, so he couldn’t start getting nervous now; that would be asking for a catastrophe.
“Zakar, we are going,” Yimar Furi said strongly and after giving Zakar a brief look, headed out of the chamber.
Zakar clenched his fists, his whole body tensing up. Then, he breathed out and relaxed. Finally, it was the time for him to extract his revenge! He followed his old friend and a step behind him joined the three black-golden clothed commanders. The original plan had been to stake everything at breaking through whatever obstacles and capturing Arslan through any means necessary, but the situation had changed and their odds have improved. Two hundred elites, Yimar Furi and three of his commanders; as long as nothing unexpected happened, this force should prove to be more than enough.
---
Behind the City of Colne, within the deep forest. There was no wind, yet the trees of the forest seemed to be moving.
A magical beast appeared in the sky above the forest. It let out an ear-piercing screech, then flew back into the clouds and disappeared.
At this moment, the whole grand forest was filled with the rumbling sounds of the countless horses’ hooves stomping rhythmically.
As those people emerged from within the trees, if one were to look four distinct groups could be told apart.
Well over one hundred thousand of those men were dressed in a random manner. They were most likely the cannon fodder.
Fifty thousand were dressed in grey-black clothes. They were most likely the Realm of Heroes experts of various Yimars of the Guode Yimarate.
Finally, five thousand were wearing pitch-black uniforms and another one three thousand were wearing silver-gold uniforms.
The mass of riders numbering two hundred thousand was moving southwards, past the City of Colne and toward the Faren Yimarate.
---
“We should have bought more food,” Reian mentioned with a sigh. Their caravan was once again setting out forward after stopping briefly and welcoming yet another group of people; this time one that was a mix of Euleanians and Ikarians. “Some of them have rations, but most of them don’t. What was supposed to last two years will be eaten through within two months,” he complained, unhappy with this state of things. Should they try and stray from their path and go to the closest city to buy more food? But the closest city was over six hundred kilometers away, while they were already almost at the outer borders of the Ruishi Federation.
“Since when are you such a worrywart?” Jasmine asked casually. “It’s up to those people what they do after we throw them off at the Ruishi Federation. Whether we help them all any further or not depends on what our little masters want,” she pointed out and smiled to herself. She was very glad to see Arslan laugh and have fun like a normal child while playing cards with Laien, Yin, Johan and Albert. Those past days the boys had even made up with Sarah, who at the moment was busying herself with organizing the details of future cooperation with the newest members of their caravan.
Jasmine was in an incredibly good mood, but it wasn’t entirely because she was happy for Arslan. True, that was a part of it, but what made her even happier was that after a few decades of stagnation, she had made two consecutive breakthroughs, all thanks to sparring with Laien and Yin! Her insights into the ‘Secret Art of Wrath’ and the ‘Secret Art of Pride’, or as those two boys called it, the ‘Aspect of Wrath’ and the ‘Aspect of Pride’ were once again advancing! She had been stuck at what she felt to be a halfway-point in those two insights for a long time now, yet just exchanging blows with those two boys helped her so much! She couldn’t be happier.
“Why don’t you apologize to them?” Jasmine mentioned with a wry smile while glancing at Reian. Then, she said very quietly, “You are trying to occupy yourself with strange things, but I know you are just trying not to think about it. You were the stupid one to tell them that you have better things to do than to spar with them when they asked if you weren’t interested. Man up, apologize and ask them if they wouldn’t spar with you.”
With Jasmine poking at his sore spot, Reian couldn’t help but reveal some sourness in his expression. Would fighting those two really bring him any benefits? No matter how talented or monstrous those kids were, he had refused to accept it… but now that Jasmine made two consecutive breakthroughs, he had no choice but to admit it. Yes, he was jealous of Jasmine’s progress and yes, he was being prideful about this whole thing. He knew it, he knew it but… why was it so hard to admit?
“Eh, whatever.” Reian let out a heavy sigh. “I will apologize after we enter the Ruishi Federation,” he said quietly and gave Jasmine a pleading look. There was no reason for her to keep picking on him anymore now that he had made this decision, hopefully?
Jasmine chuckled and closed her eyes, a smile present on her face. She was about to start meditating, when…
“Oh, great.”
Sirius’s voice reached them from outside of the carriage. They had only been thinking and speaking of it jokingly, but Sirius really came to enjoy playing the role of a coachman.
“There’s even more of them waiting for us at the crossroad. Looks like well over two thousand,” Sirius said with a rare laugh, finding this situation to be amusing in many ways. To him, it was just like feeding stray cats; first, you give some food to one, then the next day two of them come, then four or five, then a dozen… until you are literally swarmed with cats who won’t leave you alone.
“Do we go out?” Arslan asked, the tone of his voice suggesting that he wasn’t too enthusiastic about finishing their game early.
“Nah,” Laien responded with a shrug of his shoulders. “There’s nothing important for us to do there anyway. Just let Sarah handle it all,” he said and smirked somewhat playfully. He might have made peace with Sarah, but he was determined to get back at her in some way until he would be satisfied.
Guessing Laien’s thoughts, Albert laughed a little. Sarah would probably pout if he didn’t come out to help her this time around, but he was ready to bear with this treatment from her. She deserved some trouble and to be honest, he was enjoying himself greatly with those four. It had been very rare for him to have any carefree time in his life, so he was the more so reluctant to give up on it. After all, even if he acted like an adult, he was in the end just a fourteen years old youth.
In this way, it was unanimously decided that the burden of dealing with formalities and managing the new two thousand members would fall onto Sarah.