Once again, I was forced to make a decision with limited information. I didn’t know what measures the empire had in place to watch me. Perhaps the black robed figure who’d caught me in the library was part of a spy, assassin, or black ops division. Therefore, the only path that guaranteed my immediate survival was to follow along with the heroes.

I decided to bide my time.

When morning came, I was quickly ushered to the castle’s front gates by my maid after a quick breakfast.

“This is as far as I go, Hero Julius,” she bid me farewell.

“Thanks for everything, Catherine,” I returned before she left. I wouldn’t see her again, death and escape being the only two options I foresaw.

There was a carriage waiting for me. It was made out of dark wood with large steel wheels connected to an intricate suspension system. Two black creatures that looked like a mix between horses and bulls were harnessed to the vehicle.

Griff and the other heroes were already waiting for me.

“Hey! Julius! Let’s get going!” Lily called me over.

“Hey Lily,” I returned while nodding to Gyeong.

“You’re late,” Vijay grumbled.

“Not as late as her,” I said pointedly, just as Lady Casteliano walked to the gates with a crowd of servants and luggage.

“Leave the nonessentials, Briana,” Griff said sternly. The woman looked positively scandalized at the way he addressed her.

“You will call me Lady Casteliano,” she huffed.

“Wartime is no place for pleasantries, mage,” Griff shot back.

The other heroes inched back and kept silent as the two masters got into a heated argument. To me, any internal conflict was an opportunity I could exploit.

“I can carry an extra bag for you, Lady Casteliano,” I offered.

She looked at me gratefully and passed me a heavy suitcase. “See, Griff, you should be a gentleman like my student here.”

“Your student! He’s my student!” Griff rebutted, setting off another back and forth.

The fuss came to an abrupt stop when a horde of people came pushing a series of carts. On them lay shining metal armor and weaponry. It seemed we were finally getting proper equipment.

A male servant unrolled a parchment scroll and declared imperiously, “By the grace of His Majesty, Emperor Isaac the Third, the Heroes Lily, Vijay, Julius, and Gyeong have been granted armor and weaponry from the Imperial Armory to assist in the battle against demonic forces.”

The servants helped us into the armor. We donned chainmail over our cloth, and finally plate armor went on top and secured through various straps. It was tight but surprisingly breathable. The metal looked like steel but had a slight burnt yellow tint, almost like a hint of gold had been mixed in.

I was given a new halberd with blades made out of the same metal. It was a glorious weapon, a combination of a spear with a spike and axe blade sprouting out of the sides. It gave me reach, an edge for cutting, and a spike for piercing armor. I loved it.

Lily was given a bow and a quiver of arrows with sky-blue arrowheads. Vijay was given a small staff that ended in a metal spike made of the same bluish metal. Gyeong, however, clearly had the most special weapon. It was a thin cylinder of metal, but it was taller than any of us in height. The metal was pitch black, except it had spiraling grooves running up and down filled with a dark gold metal and the sky-blue metal of Lily’s arrowheads.

I recognized the metals, finally. Dark gold was orichalcum, sky-blue was mithril, and black was adamantium. We had learned about the metals’ special properties in class, and Lily was starting to freak out in glee at seeing them in person. Looking at my halberd, I saw that it was a steel-orichalcum alloy, making it significantly cheaper than the other three’s weapons. The blatant favoritism made me sigh.

“At least my halberd doesn’t look like a magical pencil,” I grumbled.

“What was that, punk?” Vijay clamored.

“Settle down, kids,” Griff interjected.

We had to enter the carriage with the armor strapped on, as there was no space to store unequipped suits of armor. I was positively cramped, having to also carry Lady Casteliano’s extra suitcase on my lap. The carriage’s inside had two benches that fit all four of us heroes, Lily and Vijay facing backwards while Gyeong and I faced forwards. Griff and Lady Casteliano both sat outside in the coach box, the raised seat that gave drivers better sight lines.

Griff took the reins of the horse-like creatures and we set off at an unexpected speed. It wasn’t as fast as a car but it was a significant improvement from Earth’s horse drawn carriages.

There was a little grate between the coach box and the carriage’s interior that let me speak with the two masters.

“How are we going so fast?” I asked.

Lady Casteliano raised her chin arrogantly. She explained, “I’m using [Elemental Magic] to lower wind drag, and this carriage’s supports have been filled with earth that I can pull on to effectively reduce weight."

“You’re levitating the carriage? That’s so cool!” Lily gushed. Vijay was more skeptical about the method’s mana efficiency.

Griff cut in, “I’m doing most of the work, however, feeding my aura into the yorns so they don’t tire.” I assumed he was talking about the almost-horses pulling the carriage forward. Frankly, I was more impressed with Griff. Aura was hard to manipulate far from your body, and Griff was extending his through the reins.

There was a reason [Aura Punch] and [Aura Strike] were classified as different techniques even though they both just formed a coat of aura that dealt damage: [Aura Strike] required the ability to extend your aura a limited distance to coat a weapon, and it wasn’t easy.

Despite the initial excitement, things dulled after hours of no change. We didn’t even have windows. Our carriage was designed to get us to the defensive line as fast and safely as possible, not to let us tour the countryside or carry along servants and luxuries.

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“Ugh. I need something to do,” Lily moaned.

“Shut up and meditate,” Vijay said, but even he was getting bored of training [Mana Affinity] for so long.

Eventually, Lily’s wandering eyes locked onto the suitcase on my lap, the luggage I’d offered to carry for our mage instructor. I celebrated, having planned this from the very beginning.

“Don’t do it,” Gyeong said, having noticed her intention.

“Come on, though, we have nothing else to do,” Lily whispered.

“Ask her first,” Gyeong said, always the one with a greater sense of responsibility.

“She’ll say no, we all know how stuck up she is,” I countered. “And I’m bringing extra luggage for her, I owe something in return. Anything is better than more boredom; we’ll be here for a long time.” Gyeong was bored too, so I gave one more push. “If there’s something private, I’ll close it immediately.”

“…fine,” Gyeong admitted. Even Vijay secretly cracked an eye open while still pretending to meditate.

Lily and I slowly unclasped the suitcase, extending the excitement for as long as possible. The first thing we saw was the frilly lace of fancy dresses. I felt disappointed.

Gyeong reached over and tried to slam it shut, but I blocked him with my body and continued sorting through the contents. Perhaps there would be something more useful hidden underneath.

“Aha!” I exclaimed victoriously, pulling out a book. Gyeong stopped wrestling with me and all four of us looked at it eagerly.

Advanced Elements for Elemental Magic, it read, crushing my hopes. The topic made sense since our instructor was an elemental mage, focusing on [Elemental Magic], but I’d hoped for something that was more relevant to me.

Still, knowledge was knowledge, so I flipped through it with my companions. It required some awkward positioning so that all of us could see the text, but we made it work.

The book was surprisingly interesting. It started by listing the four basic elements: earth, fire, water, and air. Then, however, it started introducing various advanced elements that I didn’t know [Elemental Magic] could manipulate: metal, wood, lightning, and more.

Apparently, the list of elements taught to mages were just suggestions. An elemental mage could attune to any element, as long as it was a physical component of nature and lacking complexity. The first problem was that most elements that weren’t the basic four were harder to find in the real world, forcing mages to waste mana producing them. Secondly, it was hard to attune to rarer elements like lightning.

According to the book, even light could be an element. That shocked me, as if light could be manipulated through [Elemental Magic] then much of the advantage of [Illusion Magic] would be negated.

Thankfully, reading a little further settled my fears. [Elemental Magic] could manipulate and create light, but it had none of the fine control [Illusion Magic] had. Moreover, light was fast, and therefore it was very hard for an elemental mage to grasp it and manipulate it. Beyond creating balls of light and blinding people, elemental light was a waste of time.

It seemed to me like the skill [Elemental Magic] had the capacity to store ‘blueprints’ of physical things. Those blueprints could be used to create temporary mimicries of elements, and manipulate similar physical matter.

The creation aspect seemed similar to [Illusion Magic], or at least the technique [Physical Illusion]. Perhaps there was something I could learn from [Elemental Magic]?

The book provided a distraction for the rest of the day. Eventually, the sun started to set and a city wall came into view in the distance. Strangely, instead of driving towards the city, Griff pulled us off the road onto the grass.

“Stay here. I’ll go into the city and restock on supplies,” he said.

I pushed open the carriage door. “What are you doing! Why don’t we just enter the city and spend the night at an inn?” I was fuming. In a city I’d have actual options: I could easily ‘get lost’ in the crowd and slip away.

“It’s safer out here,” he responded simply. “But we packed light so the yorns could pull us faster, so I need to buy some things. Try to get what sleep you can. We’ll be leaving bright and early at dawn.”

While Lily and the other heroes complained loudly, I noticed that Lady Casteliano kept silent. That’s what keyed me in that something of real importance was going on. If the stuck up royal branch family noble was willing to sleep in the wild when an inn was a short distance away… then there really was danger in the city.

Were they afraid that devils had infiltrated the city somehow? I wasn’t aware that devils could do that, since the corruption process dramatically changed their appearance.

Unfortunately, the aura master ran off before I could question him more. Lady Casteliano was still here, though.

“What was that about it not being safe?” I asked.

She sniffed haughtily. “Just some weaklings who don’t know their place.” She refused to say more, ignoring us to read some books she brought along under a summoned ball of light.

“If there’s danger, at least don’t shine light everywhere…” I sighed.

“Well, if you’re so eager to volunteer, then leave the carriage so I can read inside,” she said sarcastically.

That was perfect, actually. “Fine. I’ll take your place, just stop exposing our position.” The woman looked at me in surprise before shrugging and taking me up on my offer.

I stepped out of the carriage and waved her in like a gentleman. Her light cut off with the click of the door closing, leaving me alone in the reddish light of alpenglow. The ambient noise of nature was soothing for a moment, until I heard muffled voices from inside.

“Can we read some books to? We’re bored!” Lily begged.

“No. These are mine,” the noble replied, as expected.

I ignored the conversation and reevaluated my situation. Griff was temporarily gone, removing the primary obstacle to an escape. If I got some distance, I didn’t think a mage could catch up to me. The problem was getting that distance. If I suddenly started masking my mana, Lady Casteliano would notice.

Maybe she wasn’t focusing on her senses, since she was reading, and maybe she wouldn’t care. I didn’t count on it, though.

It was hard to estimate the range of someone’s aura or mana sense, since there was no true delineation, the sense just gradually becoming fuzzier. It was possible to sense stronger sources of mana or aura at farther distances, and how much attention a person paid also mattered. She could probably find my mana pool if I were in half a mile, but I didn’t need to go that far to be able to mask myself without startling her.

I eyed the forest line a hundred feet away, wondering if I should make a break for it. If I asked to use the bathroom, could I make it far enough away to mask myself and run? Would the empire know I ran away and hunt me down?

Before I could make a decision, I spotted some movement in the tree line. I instantly tensed, putting my palm on the hilt of my arming sword. My halberd was currently packed up in the carriage, to unwieldly to carry normally, but I still had on my armor and side weapon.

I’d been taught about monsters but we were close to a city, and those areas were generally safe. My mind panicked at the unknown, unsure if I was seeing danger where there was none. I scanned the trees, the darkening night casting shadows and obscuring my vision.

A silhouette stepped out of the trees, obscured by unnaturally dark shadow.

I almost screamed. I don’t know why I didn’t. Instead, I sat there for a moment, simply staring at the humanoid silhouette as fear built inside me.

I saw white- the glint of teeth from a smile. The shadowy person raised an arm and beckoned me closer.

I was afraid, and angry. This was supposed to be my chance to escape! It still might be, but I was no longer willing to take the risk. Once again, limited information gave me only one path that guaranteed my survival: staying with the carriage.

I thought it through. The silhouette was just a man, at worst a devil, who had a high level of [Stealth] or some illusion magic enhancing the shadows on his body. There was nothing to be afraid of- those were all known quantities.

I forced my ragged breathing to calm down. What could I do?

In a spark of brilliance I arrived at the perfect idea. I still had the elemental magic book from Lady Casteliano’s suitcase, which I promptly opened and tore out a page. I forced myself to look away from the man for split seconds at a time to make sure I wasn’t being snuck up on from a different angle.

Meanwhile, I’d pulled out a pen and scribbled a message on the paper. “Who are you? What do you want?” Then, I executed the smartest idea my scared brain could think of and folded a paper airplane.

That’s right, my response to a terrifying man hiding in the darkness was to fold a paper airplane.

I threw it at him. My physical training over the past half year made my aim perfect. The paper airplane sailed through the air until it entered the shadows.

The man snatched it out of the sky and read it.

Most of the fear left me at that point. My brain was finally convinced that the shadowy figure in front of me could be treated like a human, removing the primal fear of the unknown.

The man threw the paper airplane back at me, and I could almost believe I was just playing a game. I unfolded the paper, and a return message was scribbled in messy cursive.

“The Rebellion. Help us fight tyranny, Hero Julius, and in return we will help you be free.”