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Year 2, Fall, Second Month, First Week.

Diana gave a discrete sigh while exchanging a “save me” look with Karl. Fortunately, the discussion had dialed down to details confirming and would soon end, hopefully! Karl could only smile apologetically, after all, they had less than two months to put the escape plan in full motion, nothing short of thoughtfully planned should be allowed at this stage.

“Do you think the magic locator will be ready until the end of the week?”

Katlyn’s tone didn’t overstep their respectful relation but put forth the urgency of the matter. Reiner look at Karl for the answer, his mother had successfully taken over almost all of the management matters in the department, but this was too serious to fall under her estimations, it had to be a precise answer.

“I’m confident on it… I only need to test it on the wind horses. Until now, I avoided doing it because grandma Mar… I’m sorry, chairwoman Marlen told me they still needed some time before the horses weren’t hostile against villagers. Apparently, the taming process takes a lot of time… Anyway, it should be ready in a couple of days.”

With this, the meeting was finally over. As soon as they started to stand up, two trembling villagers entered the Council pavilion holding food pots. Since it was already past the time for the midday meal, Marlen had saved and sent a portion for them. The two villagers felt a little hesitant to enter the most respected place in the village, after all, only Council members were usually allowed inside. After thanking the villagers, the hungry Council members started eating. Diana and Karl found a corner where they could eat and discuss something privately.

“For the Origin, by now I thought I would be used to the long meetings, but they still feel unbearably boring…”

“Hehe. You should be grateful that we only need to participate in the meeting D, if your grandfather had his away we would be the department’s heads… I can’t imagine you being tied to management tasks all day… Hahaha!”

“Shush. It’s better to don’t even discuss it, it could bring bad luck… May the Origin forbid that, I would be crazy in less than a week… So, it’s really coming?”

“Yeah… We can’t back down anymore… Are you afraid? I mean, of running from the Kingdom and facing the beasts in the Forest?”

“Of course not, we have everything we need…”

Diana looked at Karl’s supportive expression, with him, she didn’t have to be the strong and unbreakable sword that would guide them towards victory. She stopped her pre-arranged speech midways and revealed her true thoughts:

“I’m. My whole life I trained to face an unbeatable enemy… On the surface, I always longed for this fight, but I don’t feel ready. The fight against Lew made clear that we’re not strong enough to take the Kingdom… I pray that we can escape without fighting them…”

Karl saw the pained expression on Diana’s face, he reached for her hand and made his support clear. She was one of the pillars of the village, especially for the hunters, so she couldn’t demonstrate fear or hesitation in public. However, what Karl didn’t know was that she felt guilty, guilt for betraying her life’s purpose and her grandpa’s faith.

Since she could remember, her grandpa's only desire was revenge, he wanted to destroy the Kingdom, and so it became her goal too. Years of training just preparing for a moment where they could strike the Kingdom. Of course, they didn’t think themselves capable of destroying it, but they hope to make it bleed. Now, an opportunity had presented itself but she could only think about escaping. Admitting it to Karl, made her feel relieved but also disappointed at herself.

A few meters away, Reiner happily went through her meal. The fragrant and complex taste of the wind meat made her feel refreshed and satisfied. Today’s meal was quite sumptuous, instead of the regular three pieces of meat, the serving had five pieces. Initially, she thought it was a mistake but then she remembered the last Council meeting, where they decided to increase the magic ingredients in their food. They only had two months before they entered the Forest, so they needed to take some extreme measures to prepare the villagers’ bodies.

Reiner secretly spied on Diana and Karl having their meal on the opposite side of the pavilion. She couldn’t help but smile satisfied before giving a long sigh, how long would they pretend nothing was happening? They should just admit their feelings already.

***

Karl entered the large shed built near the village’s magic fields. The beasts inside moved, trying to sniff who was the new visitor but they were too scared to approach him. He hesitated and looked at grandma Marlen for guidance. She gave a positive nod and asked him to move forward while Katlyn tried to calm the wind horse with a gentle touch and sweet words. Karl picked the herbs with Marlen and got close to the nearest horse extending his hands to it. The horse turned to him and slowly sniffed his hand before bitting the herbs and retreating. It took some time, but the horses finally got used to Karl.

After explaining that his tests shouldn’t hurt but could startle the beasts, Karl took a step back before signaling for Anya to bring the tool closer. The magic locator’s testing design was separated into two tools drawn in common wooden plates, one for searching and another for notifying the results. The non-Alchemists looked curiously at the magic tool that represented one of the biggest accomplishments of the village, but they fail to make any sense of it, they could only say it was more complicated than any other tool in the village. With Karl’s confirmation, Anya placed the MQ wind crystal in its place and pressed the Activation Rune on the bigger wooden plate.

The magic energy flowed from the energy crystal powering the Arrays. When all drawings shined, a gentle breeze left the tool. Katlyn and Marlen looked at the horses expectantly while Karl and Anya turned their attention to the second tool. This notifying tool was a little exotic, the wooden plate had some markings at one side but didn’t have any Arrays. On the top of the plate, a wooden stick was fixated perpendicularly, balancing two stones that hanged at both sides tied by a rope. The stone at the same side of the drawings was bigger, so the wooden stick was inclined to this side, causing the big stone to be lower.  

The horses’ attention was triggered by something, but otherwise, they didn’t do anything. Karl held his breath until he saw the Array drawn on the bigger stone shine. The Lightness Rune in the stone shined and it started to rise slowly. The wooden stick inclination reduced as the stone continued to rise until it stopped in the N mark. Karl gave a satisfied smile before explaining that each marking represented a direction. Then, he asked Anya to turn around and press the Activation Rune again. Soon, the stone that had already returned to its initial position shined before rising to the S mark.

Marlen and Katlyn were shocked by the tool’s function, they drown Karl with questions until he promised to give an open class about it the next day. The tool worked, but they still had to finish the calibration for higher distances. It took them the rest of the day to finish and the magic locator was finally ready.

***

“Please, be careful with those leaves, we need to preserve as much as we can!”

Kanin continued to yell instructions until all of the mature crops were harvested, then he coordinated the villagers to fill the cart before someone came and took it to the camp. He looked at the half-harvested fields and breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately, they would finish harvesting everything before the last month of fall came.

To relieve their transportation schedule, the Council decided to start moving everything they could to the camp. In fact, the camp would be filled with villagers from morning to the evening, doing all sorts of tasks, cooking, processing materials from the hunts and now, handling the harvest. The idea was to slowly move the villagers to the camp, so they could get used to the high energy density while reducing future transportation problems. For the hunting teams, this situation was ideal because it would reduce the number of resources they had to carry back to the village.

After he finished sending off the harvested crops, Kanin rushed to village central square. Although he didn’t know much about Alchemy, he too wanted to see Karl presenting the newest tool, the magic locator. When he arrived, Karl was already giving his open lesson.

“The locator (first tool) has a very complex Array formed by three parts. The most external part has a Combination Array merging the effects of the Signature Extraction Array, the Property Extraction Array and a Manifestation Rune. This part is responsible for forming a wave that travels through the air towards a direction. First, wave is a property from the wind element, that can be extracted from MQ wind crystals. So, the wave property is extracted from the wind crystal before being manifested by the Rune with a condition. The condition set by the MT beast’s blood in the center of the Signature Extraction Array is for the wave to react to beasts of this tier.” 

“The second part establishes four different outputs for the generated wave then uses an Addition Array to group the outputs. Each output points to one of the four cardinal directions and also gives a different level of energy density for each output. To sum up, this Array receives a wave and directs it to four different directions with different density for each.”

“The last part is just a Stimulus Rune to increase the size of the wave, making it travel through longer distances.”

“Now comes the second tool, the magic wave reader. The waves leave the locator, traveling in the four directions until they met the same energy signature specified earlier, a MT beast. When that happens, the weave will react by bouncing back to the same direction it came. That’s when the reader comes in. The reader is formed by one complex Array and a Lightness Rune. The Signature Absorption Array has the effect of absorbing a specific type of energy from the environment. By adding the same blood to the center of the Signature Extraction Array, the Signature Absorption Array will be able to absorb the returned wave energy.” 

“Once the wave comes back, the reader will absorb its energy and transmit it to the Lightness Rune, indicating the presence of a MT beast. Now, the wave from each direction has a different density, which will be transferred to the Lightness Rune, causing different levels of effect. The north wave has the strongest effect making the stone be the lightest. The balancing system in the reader will quickly indicate a beast at the north, the same would happen for any of the other three directions. We still have to test the distances and re-calibrate the tool inside the Forest, but it will work to point any MT beast inside of a one-kilometer radius.”

“…”