Chapter 95: What the future holds

Step by step, Fen was getting deeper and deeper into the forest. For some reason, as soon as he and Arla split from the rest of the group, the mouth of the leader of the people group that attacked them closed. 

For over an hour, the young man was tormented by the complete lack of idea of what was happening. Was it all a ploy to separate the most capable fighter from the rest of the group and overwhelm him with numbers? Or maybe the words that the leader uttered back at the caravan's original camp were true, allowing the young man to have some hopes for the future?

Walking beside him, Arla didn't look happy either. With her eyes tracking the earth in front of her feet, the girl exuded an aura of defeat, clearly anxious about the same things that bothered Fen's mind.

"Okay, we should be deep enough to have some peace."

Finally, after more than an hour of walking in silence, the leader of the group that was guiding them deeper and deeper into the woods, spoke up. Turning sideways, the middle-aged man put two of his fingers in his mouth before producing a long whistle.

As if Fen's mind came under attack, this penetrating sound seemed to avoid all the barriers that the young man could raise around his mental self, crumbling them one after the other. Yet, after just a moment of Fen's blood boiling up as to prepare him for the inevitable, the line of the trees in the proximity started to shake.

"Here they come."

Watching the ongoing events with a gleeful smile, the leader of this strange group clearly enjoyed the effects that his actions had on the duo. 

"Anyway, I can tell how anxious you two are. At this point, I will give you the choice. You can either ask me anything and get the answers that I'm allowed to give you, or you can wait patiently for a few hours and see everything with your own eyes. Whether or not you would like to give yourself such a nice surprise, it's up to you."

There wasn't even a single hint of hostility on the man's face. To be quite frank, from how all the people that were killed during the fight turned out to be this man's compatriots and nothing more than actors, there wasn't any, even the most remotely blood feud between two groups. 

"I'm done with waiting for answers. If you are allowed to tell us, then start from the beginning. Who are you and where are we going?"

Seeing the chance to finally break the barrier that barred him from the truth, Fen didn't even consider ignoring it as an option. Even if every single word that this strange man would say would turn out to be a bunch of horseshit, then the young man would still attempt to derive some pieces of usefull information that this man would spill unknowingly in the process of bullshiting him!

"If that's what you want, then sure. To begin with, I'm second group leader of the Kinarian Border Army. While we operate on the land that officially belongs to the empire, it's been years since any of those fuckers dared to go deep enough to discover the very reason why they are forbidden entry to this place."

The rustling of the nearby trees soon turned into true mayhem, when a huge herd of strange animals burst into the small path that Fen's new group was following. Shaped like some kind of a mix between a small horse and an agile predator from the cat family, their sheer appearance instantly turned Fen's hunter senses into a mess. 

The signals that his body instantly communicated to his mind prompted him to either just accept the inevitable, or try to do the impossible and escape from the pack. It was the same feeling if not worse, than when Fen was faced with the beast that would claim his life if not for the prompt Inquisitor's intervention all the way back then!

"With those, we will reach the occupied city in about an hour. It will be impossible to talk while riding on them, so you have one question left for now. I will answer all the others once we safely get to the river."

Contrary to Fen's innate expectations, those beasts didn't jump on them at once, but sat in a circle around the border guards' leader! With their shaking tails and glinting eyes, it was clear that those beasts were far more excited about their next task than any of the humans around!

"Where are we going? What will happen to us?"

Those two questions would lead to a similar answer, and could at least clarify what both Fen and Arla could expect from the nearest future. Even if any act of disobedience against this man would most likely result with the entire heard of those strange beasts pouncing on them, it was worthy consideration whether the quick death from the predators' claws wasn't the better way out than whatever awaited them on the end of their current path!

"Ugh, you picked the wrong question to ask right now. It would take a while to properly explain it… Argh!"

Shaking his head in an awful expression of powerlessness and confusion, the man nearly groaned at how troublesome this question was.

"I will simplify the situation to the point of making it no different from a flat out lie, but we don't really have the time to linger here. In short words, you will most likely join the Capital's arcanist academy. It's not something you will have to do, but given the tidbits I can guess about the past of the two of you, that will simply be the most reasonable choice."

Rubbing his hands against each other like some kind of scammy merchant trying to seel horseshit under the name of a miraculous, all-cure drug. Sadly, before Fen could even attempt to clarify what that man meant with his answer, he was already sitting on top of the nearest of the beasts, gesturing at the two of them and two of the soldiers that accompanied him to do the same.

Given no other option, Fen only shook his head before nodding his head to the girl beside him and mounting one of the beasts himself. Just the act of putting his leg over the surprisingly sturdy back of this cat-like animal made his heart jump all the way to his throat, threatening to simply leave his body and start its life anew somewhere else.

In spite of Fen's worries, the beast obediently waited for the young man to sit its bottom on its back. Yet, what was even more surprising, was that it didn't even move an inch after Fen was already comfortably sitting in the position copied from the leader of their group.

"Okay, now for the hard part. This will be a rather… exciting journey. What you need to do, is to grab their fur above their neck…"

Quickly explaining the way to properly ride the beasts, the man could only watch as Fen hurriedly followed his advice and grasped the beast's fur. 

Crack.

With the world suddenly spinning in front of Fen's eyes, the young man realised that he was already deep in the forest!

Slap.

With how unpleasant the feeling of a tree's branch hitting Fen right through his head, the young man quickly learned to lean all over the back of the beasts to avoid another beating.

Yet, outside of this initial mishap, it took the rest of his group only a moment to catch up, before what could already be considered to be a breakneck speed, turned out to be nothing more but a moment of heating-up for those insane beasts!

Using all of their four limbs to rapidly kick away at the trees that were used as nothing more than a foothold, it would be fitting to say that those beasts were actually closer to flying through the dense woodlands rather than running through them!

After countless moments when Fen was completely and utterly sure that there was no way that his mount would avoid the frontal crash with a random tree only for it to twist its body in an unprecedented way and somehow do the impossible, their insane journey finally ended.

Not even required to jump out of the best, Fen simply had to put his shaky legs down and unstably stand on the ground for his mount to just move on and disappear back in the forest!

Looking up, the dense woods gave way for a huge and open plain spreading nicely around the thin line of the river. Just a few stone throws away, a surprisingly huge settlement was located, with a constant flux of boats busying the entire waterway all the way to the places beyond Fen's range of sight.

"While it's not official, you can consider yourself to be already on Kinar Republic rights. From now on, you don't need to fear any persecution caused by your bloodline. While our country might make the mistake of helping with the crusade, we never intended for the old majesty to fall."

Appearing right beside the young man, the leader of the soldiers didn't even stop when the beast reached its destination, simply letting his legs down and jumping ahead while his mount ran off to the opposite direction. After saying some incomprehensible words about the past that was clearly narrated in a different way than what Fen could hear in the empire, this military officer looked at the young man with clear expectations in his eyes. 

"Right, before I forget, that's another important question that I want to ask. Is this item of any familiarity to you by any chance?"

Pulling out the token that Firo somehow managed to organise for him, Fen could watch how the expression of this authoritative yet sympathetic man turned agitated, to the point where his entire face blossomed in all tones of red.