Year 2, Summer, Second Month, First Week.

Katlyn continued with the hunting team's organization.

“With our numbers, we can barely watch over the shelters and form the exploring teams. Chief, we need more people in the Hunting Department, it’s better if we start training as soon as possible…”

Even though Omero wasn’t calling the shoots alone anymore, they still considered his experience dealing with the Kingdom as the Chief.

“We could pull another 100 or so villagers from the magic fields, if the Guards ask, we could say they’re sick… With these many, we would be able to form four groups and move 400 villagers per day, which would give us four days of rest before moving to another shelter… It’s slow, but that would be better for the elders and the sick, we can’t travel everyday…”

Kanin was the next Department Head to step forward.

“Ah… The Farming Department part would be providing food for the journey, I think our harvest is gonna increase by half. If we start saving food again, going back to what we used to eat, we should be capable of saving enough for half a year…”

“Dad, the harvest from the magic fields is more nutritious than the common fields, we can’t use the same standarts to measure it... Either way, we shouldn’t lower our consumption, we need the extra strength for the escape and we need to get our body used to the magic energy, or everyone would suffer from magic poisoning…”

“That’s why I think this plan is too dangerous…”

Reiner discretely kicked her husband's leg, making him hiss before going back to the main point.

“We could try to increase the magic fields and plant more fast-growing crops, but that would involve taking more from the nobles…”

Omero had already changed his plans and would be supporting Karl’s, at least for now, so he barged in.

“It doesn’t really matter if we take more seeds, once we flee they’ll come after us anyway… Of course, if we do it, there's no going back, it would be impossible to explain so much decrease in the harvest. But, you should know that even if we give up on the plan, we would have to compensate them with hundreds of slaves…”

Forced to face the consequences, the more conservative Council members, Said and Lonni, could only bitterly agree with stealing more seeds from the Kingdom’s fields. Kanin tried to point the dangers of taking more seeds but failed to change their minds. Next to speak was Alfeur.

“The Crafting Department is ready to support the escape plan. Since we got better weapons and tools, our workload decreased considerably, we are doing mostly repairs all around the village… During the escape, I think our job would be constructing the shelters and crafting some spare weapons, so we only need to be concerned with having enough resources… To construct the shelters, we could use the forest’s trees and vines, so we should only take some bamboo sticks if we can spare space, but that’s not essential… Thankfully, we received a lot of fabric and finished making garments for all of the elders, which will be useful in winter outside the village…”

Alfeur's remark about winter brought a new concern to everyone's mind. Would they need to leave before winter? How could they resist it outside the village? Even the team veterans looked concerned, after all, they had experienced the harshness of winter hunting outside. Fortunately, Marlen was always capable of maintaining a clear mind.

“We could wait for winter to pass, but in another place… If Karl can craft a barrier, we could build a shelter inside the forest and stay there until winter passes, it's not like we have better buildings here. All we need is the heating circle and it's movable anyway…”

Katlyn looked proudly at her mother, before adding:

“That could work in our favor… It would be easier to advance into the forest if we have the winter's season to explore the borders before going deeper. Diana?”

“I also agree, we would have more time to train against stronger LT beasts before facing the MT beasts. We just have to start moving as soon as possible, we have less than two seasons before winter comes…”

After agreeing to start building a shelter inside the forest and distributing new tasks for every Department, it was time for Mary to speak.

“Eh… I don’t know what the Health Department can do to help in the escape… You already considered a way to move the elders, so I would only ask for an extra cart for the sick, it’s not good to move them together with others… Oh, I think we could use more hands in the department, I guess the journey into the forest would cause many wounds and more people could get sick… And, what about the healing beds? Can we make it transportable? They’re helping a lot in the recovery…”

Once she picked up the pace, Mary started pouring many concerns and ideas about her department and the villager’s health during their escape. For someone that didn’t have many things to add, she was sure making a lot of considerations. Fortunately, Mary’s demands and concerns were all put to rest by Karl and Omero.

Finally, it was time for Reiner to present the Alchemy Department situation on the escape plan.

“From our department, we would need to press forward with many projects… Fortunately, the disciples and students are finally picking the pace. Anyway, we hope Keller can send his subordinates to pick up the rest of the order soon, we need a lot of resources from him… And that’s our main problem. Karl already shared with me the resources needed to craft the tools he told us earlier, they aren’t cheap… Maybe we could think about exchanging other goods with him besides enhancements, we can’t meet another big order and finish the preparations in time, maybe if he could come to us in the shelter before winter is over… I would ask for more hands in the department, but it would be impossible for others to learn fast enough to make a difference before we leave… Anything to add, son?”

“Hmm… Only that we need to get used to the magic energy faster, the levels inside the forest are much higher than what we face outside the village… Fortunately, I can lower the levels inside the shelters, but we still have to face it when moving through shelters… I know the Hunting Department will get busy from now on providing security for the shelter building, but we need to gather more detoxifying herbs. I might be able to craft a tool to locate the herbs, If the Alchemy Department could spare some students, I would teach them how to locate the herbs and we would only need protection from the Hunting Department. Two expeditions a week could gather enough herbs… Also, we need to start sending everyone outside the village, we could start with a couple of hours every day, but increase with time, we need to get used to it…”

Katlyn and Diana agreed with providing security for collecting the herbs, provided that they didn’t go far from the village, they would use this as training for the newbie members. Finally, the Council decided to rotate the villagers in doing the tasks outside the village. Everyone would need to stay outside for at least an hour every day. Mary and Said were very against it, they’ve been seeing how much the magic poisoning could affect the villagers. However, they couldn’t provide a better solution.

For the rest of the year, Caiset village would enter a burst of development never seen before in the history of the Kingdom. Most of the villagers would have to work later into the night, but they didn’t care, freedom was on the horizon…

***

Lew could only sight in exhaustion before letting his body fall behind a small hill. After days trying to find an opening to sneak into Wind Castle, he had to abort his attempt for the hundredth time. The city wasn’t heavily guarded, but to slip in unnoticed was almost impossible, the Guards keeping watch over the walls could easily spot someone approaching. He could only try to run for it when they were changing shifts or when some Guard seemed to be sleeping on the job, but all his attempts had ended on him running from arrows. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to care enough to chase him, they were used to scaring baggers and refugees away.

Normally, any visitors without a good motive could use some coins to get into the city, but Lew gave up on the idea on his first try when he saw the Guards checking the visitors for his portrait. He wasn’t surprised to be labeled a traitor by the Hurricane City Lord, but he didn’t expect to be wanted in other cities. Apparently, the beast attack had developed into something bigger after he fled. If he had enough resources to go to another region of the Kingdom, he would have given up on entering the city days ago, but he didn’t have any more food or water. He didn’t like the idea, but he would have to consider robbing some caravan, or he would soon starve to death.

For now, Lew could only think of sleeping a little, his last attempt had taken his remaining energy. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift into a heavy rest, but soon, a commotion brought him back to reality. The loud voices were coming from a very unusual group, that Lew could only describe as diverse. A beautiful tidily dressed young woman was yelling orders to a robed guy mounted in a wind beast. Behind them, a little girl was driving a cart while talking with bull Beastman. The scene was strange and totally out of place.

“Am I dreaming?”