Hope keeps running for a long while. She senses enforcers in every direction, their auras suffocating her even though they were not scanning her way. It is likely that they have fully secured the city walls, and she will not be able to escape for now. She must wait for the residue of her magic to fade.

She shivers at the thought of being hunted inside the city. In the forest, she had been able to escape pursuit every time they got wind of her, by simply moving every time she sensed the auras and keeping magic usage low until they stopped patrolling. She knew the same might not work in the city. The enforcers will likely scan the entire city in pursuit of her, relentlessly.

She would not be able to move much to avoid them either, Hope suddenly realizes. She might get attacked again if she is noticed by the residents, forcing her to use magic once again. But trying to break through the walls with the enforcers on high alert would be suicide. One of their scans noticing her magic and it would all be over. No, she needed to find a place to stay for some time, until she came up with a better plan.

She kept running and held her cloak tight against her, noticing that the gazes of the residents had not gone away while she was in her old home. That would be a problem as well. While most of the population could not sense magic, they might be able to connect her state of panic with the rise in enforcer activity. She needed to calm down and walk quietly.

Once Hope felt she was far away from most enforcer auras, she carefully entered one of the seemingly abandoned buildings scattered around the city. Hopefully, she was not noticed by anyone.

It was an old building, not as battered down as her old one, but also with much fewer signs that someone had been there. It seemed like it had been abandoned for quite some time. The same smell that dominated the city was also present here. The floor was dusty, and it seemed eerily devoid of anything. Whoever used to live here must have taken everything when they left. She entered one of the rooms. The door creaked loudly, scaring her. At least she would know for sure if someone entered the room.

The room was just as devoid of things as the rest of the building. The only thing in it was some old wooden planks on the ground, and a small spider and its net in one of the corners. She was glad to see that the window was a small one, only big enough to let some light in. No one would see her from the outside.

Shivering from the cold and shivering yet again when it reminded her of the basement earlier. she sat in a corner and tightened her cloak. It had been dirtied from her fall earlier, she noticed with some dismay. The gray in it spattered brown and, she realized, red. Suddenly, she began to feel the pain in her arms and legs from her earlier fall, and the pain from the club hitting her. She checked her arm. It did not seem, or feel broken, but she knew it would bruise. If she could use magic, she would just heal all of it, but she did not dare do so.

Sitting here, in the cold, alone and in pain, her vision began to blur from the tears she was now trying her best to hold back. Crying would be meaningless, right now she needed to plan. She was going to find a solution to get her out of this mess, Hope would not be captured by the enforcers.

She was glad that she had gained something from this journey, so it was not a total disaster. She wondered if she should bring out the book. Judging by the fact that the enforcers were not swarming her location, they were not able to sense it, even though it was clearly magical in nature. Bringing it out might change that, however, and even the act itself might give away her location.

Her stomach growled in hunger, and she realized she was feeling thirsty too. The thought made her go pale. In the forest, it had been easy for her to find food and water, even in the winter, thanks to her magic. She could not use it here, however. How was she supposed to feed herself? She had no money to buy food, and interacting with merchants might be dangerous. When she was a child, her mother would just call her after preparing food. She doubted something that convenient would happen here. At least a river flowed through the city, so water would not be too much of an issue. Maybe she could fish?

She had limited time, not only because of the enforcers but also her body. Hope decided to look at the book, and if she noticed an enforcer aura, she would flee immediately. Hopefully, it would contain something that could help her.

She felt the book within her mind and thought about how she could get it out. She knew she could do it, but not how. She tried doing it the same way she did her magic and focused her will on the bond that she felt. With a small sound, the book appeared in front of her. She cleaned her bloody, dirty hands on her robe and grabbed the book. She had not read one since her escape.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Opening the front page, she realized that it would stay that way. Hope knew how to read in only one language, the Overlord’s language. It was forbidden for other languages to be taught. While her parents had secretly taught her their native language, they did not teach her how to read it. Perhaps eventually they would have, but her time with them was cut short.

Books in old languages were supposed to be burnt. Someone could turn this book in for quite a reward, she imagined. She laughed at the thought, then laughed again when she realized that the entire trip had been an utter waste. Throwing the book against the wall, her right hand began to bleed again. She curled into a fetal position.

The tears she had tried to hold back were now flowing freely.

Eventually, her stomach growled again. She got up and picked up the book. Willing it to go back to her mind, she decided that she needed to get someone to help her, even if the thought of it terrified her. She needed help to figure out how to survive in this city, dress her wounds, and teach her to read the book’s language, Esei.

If she could not find someone to help, then she would try to run past the enforcers and pass the wall and while it would almost certainly get her captured, almost certain death was better than certain death in her mind. She had time to plan, for now, she sensed no enforcer close by.

Hope thought about the four boys. They had not hesitated to try to capture her the moment they believed they would get a reward for it. Most humans in the city would also be the same. Associating with a mage would mean the enforcers would try to capture them. And many would not even be old enough to have learned to read Esei. She doubted they would teach her in the first place, and other, shorter-lived races would be the same.

Of the longer-lived races, elves would know the most about magic. They used to have a presence in the city, though she doubted that was still the case. She remembered her teacher’s lesson about elves. Many elves could use magic, their race having the most magic users proportional to their population. Her parents used to be friends with many of them, often inviting them for lunch. Hope’s teacher too, was an elf, and she tried to hold back the tears that threatened to come forth again at the memories that surged forth.

Most of the elves would have been captured by the enforcers, and even the non-magical ones might have been taken. No, finding an elf here might be impossible, she would have to consider more options.

The other long-lived races were dwarves and some of the demon species. She would not be able to find a demon anywhere on this continent. That left the dwarves.

Their stubbornness and grudge-keeping were legendary. After what the Overlord had done to the Mountainhome during the conquest, she doubted any dwarves would turn her in, but that does not mean that they would help her. Still, she felt that finding a dwarf was her best option.

She knew that there used to be a dwarven presence in the city. Most dwarves lived in mountains, where they felt most comfortable, but some also lived on the surface, typically as craftsmen. She would try visiting the workshop district. It had the added benefit that it was not far, so she felt confident that she could make it there without much incident.

Deciding not to waste any more daylight, she immediately began moving. With a trembling hand, she opened the door. Again, it creaked loudly, making her look around in fear that someone had heard. Moving quickly, she held her cloak tighter, frowning at how dirty it was now. A simple use of her magic could clean it, yet she did not dare do so.

As Hope headed for the workshop district, circling any enforcer aura she noticed widely, it still felt like she was under constant watch. Perhaps she was being paranoid, considering she had not been stopped by any residents or had not seen any enforcers closing in on her, but the way things were going relatively well somehow made her feel dread. Clenching her cloak, she tried to ignore the feeling of pain in her hand and kept moving.

As she turned around a corner, Hope stopped in place. The smithy she was thinking of checking out first was in utter ruins, much worse than anything she had seen so far, including her old house. Chunks of walls were missing, trash and rocks spread everywhere. Hope doubted she could find anything useful there and the feeling of dread she had been feeling magnified.

She did not let it stop her though. And decided to check out the glass maker next. Her city had been famous for them, and she knew there used to be many dwarves working there.

Hope felt a heavy pit in her stomach as she saw the state of it. The glass workshop somehow was in even worse ruins than the smithy. The more she looked at it, the more the destruction here seemed familiar to the destruction of her father’s study. Entire pieces or rooms missing. Parts where the roof was crushed. And, in the center of it, the Overlord’s banned standing tall.

As she walked around, noticing the various ruined workshops, she began to think, Hope had noticed how much quieter, unfriendlier, and less populated the city was now than in the past, and now she had an idea as to why. She shivered. The enforcers only acted on the Overlord’s orders.

She decided to explore a bit more. There seemed to be no enforcers in this area. She did not notice any residents, but even if she was cornered and forced to use magic again, she should be able to escape.

Moving past another corner, she finally saw a workshop that did not seem to be utterly demolished. It was a carpenter’s store. Small and unassuming, perhaps it had survived whatever happened in this district or it had been rebuilt again. Slowly and cautiously approaching it, she startled when a loud, rough voice behind began to speak “There is no salvage for you here, lass. Go back.”

That was the second time today someone had sneaked up behind her. She slowly turned around and looked at the speaker.

Shorter than her, stout, and with a gray beard as long as his entire body, a dwarf was standing in front of her, shooting Hope an annoyed, unimpressed look. It seems like she has found what she was looking for.