Chapter 2: Escaping the law

This is bad, this is really bad.

At least they are walking slowly, I might still have some time.

Before any of the knights can see me, I go running back to my room as fast as I can.

"Alright Luna, calm down and think about your options"

Well, I can calm down but I don't seem to have a lot of options...

"What do I do now? Should I hand myself over?"

If I get arrested and they look into my research my life is probably over. If it was only the prophecy or only the illegal research I might be able to get a chance to explain myself, but the two things together are going to make me look really bad.

"There's no choice, I need to escape"

But where should I go? At the very least I'm going to have to leave the kingdom, I'll just take all my savings and start a new life somewhere far away. Since I never spend much I have quite a bit of money hidden behind my wardrobe, hopefully, it will be enough.

Let's see what else I should take... To go to a different country I'll have to travel quite the distance, I've never traveled anywhere before so I have no idea of what I could need, let's think about this logically, what is the most basic and necessary thing for someone traveling on their own? Books! Of course!

Packing up all of my books would normally take some time and they would also be rather cumbersome, but fortunately for me, the darkness attribute has a very useful spell called 'storage' that will help me carry anything I need.

I open my palm in front of me and a dark hole materializes on the air, my collection of books starts flying and disappears into it.

"Alright, what else do I need?"

*Bang* *Bang*

I suddenly hear something hitting the door of my room.

"This is the royal knights! Open the door!"

Oh crap, they are here already.

I need to think of a plan to escape... I know, I'll open the door suddenly and quickly run past them before they can react!

I rush outside and... the knights are standing right in the way... I don't know what I was expecting.

"Hum, could you please move aside?"

I try asking politely but they don't look like they're going to let me pass, now they are all glaring at me, that seems a bit rude, aren't knights supposed to be gentlemen?

"She's the one! Grab her!"

A very tall and bald knight with very big muscles approaches me, well, he's tall compared to the others, he's still half a head shorter than me, he grabs my arm with his hand and pulls violently.

"Let me go!"

In a panic, I swing my arm and the bald knight is sent flying through the air into one of his companions... uh... what?

They both crash into a wall and look like they are hurt, they're not getting back up...

Am I now also guilty of injuring a knight? But that is their fault for sending someone so weak to grab me, were those muscles just for show?

"Don't let her escape! Surround her!" Another knight screams at his astonished companions.

Now there's four of them pointing their swords at me and my back is against the wall, there's really no way to escape is there... Well since I know a lot of magic I can use a few self-defense spells, there's no way that something like that could work against the royal knights but I'm desperate enough to give it a try.

"Shadow bind!"

A dozen black ropes emerge from my palm and fly towards the enemies surrounding me, but they simply swing their swords and cut the... wait no, instead it's the swords that shatter the moment they come in contact with the ropes and my assailants get wrapped by them.

"Huh?" I can only stare dumbfounded at the four men struggling in vain to free themselves.

How is that even possible? A steel sword shattering against a rope? Were they defective or something? What do they even expend our taxes on if they can't give the knights proper swords? I bet someone has been embezzling all their funds.

But this is not the time to think about that, I need to take this chance to escape! Now the only one on my way is a small girl holding a sword with both of her hands, she has light grey hair tied in a ponytail with a blue ribbon and there are two cat ears on top of her head, how cute, but isn't she too young to be a knight?

"D-Drop your weapon and surrender!" She says with a weak voice, but I don't have any weapons...

We stare at each other for a few seconds, her legs are trembling more and more and a hint of tears is starting to appear on her eyes.

"Please, let me through"

"Eeeeek"

The moment she hears my voice she lets out a high-pitched scream and falls backward landing on her butt, then she starts sobbing.

Is she alright? I feel sorry for her, but I need to run away.

I manage to leave the library without any other incidents, running on the streets towards the city walls... I got completely lost.

Well, I guess it can't be helped, since I don't go outside much I don't know these streets well, in fact, this is the very first time I've been out at night.

Since I'm not getting anywhere anyway I'll take this chance to catch my breath, but strangely, I don't seem to be out of breath at all even though I've been running around for some time now.

"So many people..."

I thought that there would be nobody else around at this time, but there are groups of friends hanging out everywhere, I guess that should be expected from the capital of the kingdom, that just shows how little I know of what having friends is like, the one friend I do have is not exactly an example of the norm.

Now that I think about it, if I leave now I'll probably never come back here again, that thought makes me a bit sad, this city is all I've ever known after all, and now I'm wishing that I had taken the time to know it a bit better.

Before I start getting depressed I should go back to focusing on my escape, this is not the time to think about pointless stuff.

"But how will I get past the city walls?"

If the guards have been alerted about me they won't let me get past the gates, and even if they haven't, I don't think that they let people go out during nighttime, much less a girl going out alone.

Fortunately for me, I have a perfect spell for both finding my way and getting over the walls, it's technically a combination of three different spells, but in practice, it may as well be just one.

"Let's hope that I don't crash"

I concentrate dark mana on my back and a pair of jet black wings materialize, the people around me seem to notice my magic and now they are all looking in my direction, it's embarrassing but I can understand them, this is a very rare form of magic, after all, I also get interested whenever I see someone use a spell I don't know.

With a jump and a flap of my wings I launch myself into the air, I actually don't have a lot of practice doing this, there's not a lot of space to fly inside of the library, after all, so the altitude and speed I can reach are very limited, but it should be enough to get over those walls.

Not wasting any time I make a beeline to the edge of the city, but as soon as I approach the wall the guards on top start firing their muskets at me!

They didn't hesitate at all, do they always fire at everyone who tries to fly over them? Actually, that makes sense, there would be no point in having guards if they just let anyone get past them.

I panic for a moment when I see a lead ball strike me on the shoulder, but it's not very painful at all, it feels more like someone poked me with their finger with slightly too much strength.

It doesn't seem like I got injured at all, did I really get hit? In the first place, it's weird that I was able to see the projectiles so clearly when they were mid-flight, they should be too fast for that, I must have just imagined that.

A moment later I get out of their reach, looking behind me no one seems to be pursuing me.

"Well, I'm not sure how I did it but I managed to escape"

I fly over the plains that surround the capital and land on a forest a bit further away, now that the trees are hiding me I can finally relax.

But naturally, I get lost immediately after I start wandering around.