A looming tension could be felt in the air as the carriage that Vivienne had gifted to Evelyn and her companions drove down the streets of the Miris Sect.
Those that could leave were packing up, while those that could not wore nervous expressions and gathered what they could as if the end of the world was nigh.
Evelyn and Lucia were currently sitting on the coaches stand together, driving the magic vehicle that moved without the need of a beast of burden.
Occasionally unseemly sorts would stare at their carriage with greed in their eyes. While it was devoid of any ornantation and did not look like anything special, simply the fact that it was a magic item gave it value.
Of course, whenever any potential thieves spotted the two won at the front of the vehicle, they imdiately turned away and forgot about any nefarious plans they had. Only soone that was blind would be unable to tell how strong the two were. Even with the city's growing unrest and flattering order, it would be suicidal to attack a pair of mage ranked individuals. The two of them had more than enough power to repel any common thugs.
Eventually their carriage rolled up to a large line of people fleeing the city. Hundreds of carts, wagons, carriages, and other vehicles were congesting the area. It was so bad that the guards and city officials trying to move things along appeared to be at their wit's end.
"Should we try and push through?" Evelyn asked, her eyes glazing over as she stared at the nurous people in front of them. At this rate, it was unclear if they would be able to leave before nightfall.
Lucia seed to consider the question for a few monts before nodding her head. She did not want to attract undue attention since they were technically smuggling Maeve out of the Sect, but it would be worse if they ended up being caught up in the coming conflict.
Having received Lucia's permission, Evelyn activated her gravity and wind magic to lift their carriage into the air. The model they had been given could not normally fly like the one Maeve originally arrived at the Miris Sect in, however, it was easy enough for Evelyn to lift it into the air and push it along with a strong air current.
Naturally this caught the attention of everyone in the area, and the Miris Sect mbers that were attempting to keep order.
It was impossible for anyone to stop them though. The roads were too congested to move through quickly, and no one else around could fly. Magic that could increase one's mobility in such an impactful way would never be given out to grunts that served as roaming guards.
When they finally reached the city's gate, Evelyn set the carriage down near the front of the line.
They received all manner of dirty looks and shouts from the people they had cut in front of, but a single glare from Lucia and a wave of intimidating magic energy shut everyone up. The strong were free to do as they liked, and anyone was welco to try and stop them at their own risk.
The people manning the gate ca up to question Lucia and Evelyn, but a quick bribe using a portion of the funds Vivienne had given them was enough to smooth things over. Within just a few minutes, they had exited the city, with their reason for leaving the completion of their contract and returning back to Usturg Federation.
"They let us by with less trouble than I thought." Evelyn comnted as she turned back and watched the city growing smaller behind them.
"The captain in charge was only at the mid-tier of the mage rank. Obviously, he did not want to cause any problems with our group since we could have really made a ss of things. We had already displayed a lack of care for the city's rules, so I assu he feared that we might beco violent if we did not get our way. I'd have done the sa thing in his position." Lucia replied.
Even with the disguise magic tools they had making all of them appear human and a rank lower than they actually were, their band was still quite formidable to most people. No one wanted a group of individuals capable of knocking down buildings with ease going on a rampage.
After the Miris Sect's capital city vanished from sight, Lucia and Evelyn stopped the carriage and Bylur and Rehni switched with them. For the rest of the journey their group would be driving the carriage in shifts.
Laying down in one of the seats was the unconscious Maeve. Evelyn had given her a sleeping potion to make sure that she stayed unconscious. The last thing they wanted was for her to wake up and try and force her way back to her grandaunt.
Evelyn stared at the pitiful girl that had lost practically everything and wondered what to do with her.
She was conflicted.
A part of her just wanted to kill Maeve and be done with it. She was a human after all and liable to beco their enemy should she ever find out what they had done. Without Evelyn and her party killing Uriah and Osvaldo, she would not have been forced to flee the Miris Sect.
Yet deep down, she sympathized with the unfortunate human girl. Seeing her past self in Maeve. And that made it harder to make the callous decision she felt needed to be made.
"She could be useful to us. I've already thought of a number of ways to benefit from turning her into our ally." Lucia suddenly said. As if she could read Evelyn's mind and knew what she was thinking.
Evelyn did not bother asking how Lucia realized what had been on her mind and instead nodded her head. Her feelings of reluctance were enough to make her budge in the face of Lucia's assessnt.
Wanting to wash away the heavy atmosphere, Aralee instead brought up more cheerful conversation topics. She could tell that her older sister was struggling with sothing and wanted to help take even a bit of the weight off of her mind.
Like that their group of give beasts and one unconscious human girl made their way out of the Miris Sect and towards the Usturg Federation.
It took several days following the winding roads through the sect's territory, but they eventually reached the border checkpoint.
A massive number of people were attempting to cross the border but only around twenty percent seed to be making it through.
From what Evelyn was able to gather with her wind magic, the entry tax to enter the Federation without proper identification had been recently quadrupled from what it had been before and a lot of the people trying to leave did not have enough magic crystals or other valuables to pay the price.
"That won't be a problem for us. As far as anyone is considered, were high ranking rcenaries and first-class citizen's returning ho." Lucia said once Evelyn had relayed the information to her.
Just as they had started the trip with both of them on the driver's stand, they were now finishing it the sa way.
Thankfully crossing the border checkpoint went without a hitch. All they had to do was show their rcenary license and citizenship IDs and they were ushered through without any difficulties.
Everything continued to proceed normally until they had travelled around eight kiloters from the border. At that point a lone man brazenly walked out onto the road in front of them and blocked the way forward.
"I was told to stop anyone leaving the Miris Sect that seed suspicious. And you two fit the bill. Would you mind getting down and clearing up a few questions I have?
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