Chapter 29: Chapter 27

Argul looked around for a spot to hide. Sadly the whole area was devoid of any possible hideouts except for burying yourself in the grass and that didn’t sound like a promising idea.

Then she realized Arthur was looking at her curiously. The guy did the right thing in noticing when Argul’s behavior suddenly changed. She just couldn’t hide when she noticed something was about to happen or she found something interesting. In both cases it was likely safer not to be near her…

Argul pointed to the west, where the sound of engines originated from. “We are about to get company. You will hear them too in a few minutes.”

Arthur nodded and Argul got back to searching for a way not to stand out. Considering the two meter tall fox that was walking next to her it was an endeavor doomed to fail. She sighed and gave up. The only thing she did was walk around Alyra while dragging Mia with her so her daughter could shield the girl if something happened.

They then joined the back of the group of fugitives. It was better to not be alone when the other people arrived and hopefully Trevor would just deal with it.

After a few minutes Arthur did indeed notice the sound of the engines and smiled. “That sounds a lot like the army.”

He listened a bit more intently and his smile fell away. “And they are using the armed trucks.”

That did indeed not sound good in Argul’s opinion. While she was stronger than a normal human by a lot, she couldn’t compete with mini guns and similar weapons.

Arthur frowned in thought. “A few scouts disappearing wouldn’t spark such a reaction. Sure they would be a lot more alert, but to move out to a group of some fifty people something worse must have happened. Otherwise they wouldn’t waste their limited fuel resources.”

They weren’t the only ones who noticed the vehicles and the news spread through the group like a wildfire. People were worried, but they couldn’t really do anything but hope for the best.

Argul sighed. Couldn’t she do at least a week without something happening?

They watched as 7 armored trucks approached the group at high speeds. Once they arrived about a hundred meters away from them they fanned out and surrounded them in a half circle.

The truck in the middle was the only one with a machine gun, but really, one gun aimed at you was enough of a message and to shut you up.

The doors of the trucks except the middle one opened and armed soldiers jumped out, aiming their rifles at the group. “Do not move or we will open fire!”

Argul guessed there were about 20 of them outside, which meant there were likely more where the first had come from. She scratched her head and about 10 rifles focused on her. Uh ohh…

The door of the armed truck opened and a strict looking woman in military uniform stepped outside. Arthur groaned quietly. “Really? Of all the possible people they sent her?”

Now that made Argul curious, but the weapons stopped her from doing anything.

The woman scanned the group of refugees and you could tell by the way that the movement of her head stopped when she had a problem with something. That happened about three times, once when she looked at the first raven-kin, then when she spotted Trevor and lastly when she looked at Argul’s group. She looked a long time at them and then squinted.

She pointed at their group and her voice made sure that it was not a suggestion. “The boy with the blond hair, come here.”

Arthur did as he was told and stopped in front of the group of refugees. Then he snapped to attention and saluted. 

The woman eyed him for a moment. “Scout Arthur, I demand a report on what happened to your teammates and the situation of our eastern border.”

Arthur flinched a bit. “Yes mam!”

Then she looked at the group of refugees. “You are allowed to sit down. Don’t even think of running away, it won’t work.” 

Argul wondered where they would even run towards. Behind them waited nothing but unknown wilderness that would likely kill them and in front of them waited an army unit that would do the same.

The woman that seemed to be in command focused on Argul. “The girl with the rifle, walk 5 meters forward, put the rifle on the ground and then return to your spot.”

Nooo, not her rifle! 

She rolled her eyes and then did as she was told. The gun wouldn’t help her right now anyway. The woman said something to the soldiers and then motioned for Arthur to follow her.

Once Arthur reached the soldiers two of them grabbed him roughly and secured his hands on his back. Seemed like they did not trust him. Half of the rest of the soldiers put down their rifles and half of the other half changed their focus to Alyra. Argul doubted that it would help them, but there was no way she would tell the soldiers.

She sat down next to Mia and hugged the girl that stared wide eyed and in fear at what was happening. Alyra laid down next to them in a way that would provide them cover. 

Argul didn’t like using her daughter as a shield, but she knew that they couldn’t be truly killed by the soldiers. The same was sadly not true for Mia and Alyra just provided a safer cover than Argul could.

That didn’t mean Argul could do nothing. The army not being able to sense mana and the refugees not doing it constantly opened her some play room. 

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She started to experiment how she could copy the way light broke on her and use mana to replicate that. That way she could create a mirror image of herself. Once Argul had that down she then tried to negate the way light broke on her but not her image, basically making herself invisible. She had to tinker with that a bit as she really liked still seeing herself.

All in all it took Argul some 10 minutes to do that and she leant down to Mia. “We are going to move a bit backwards in a few seconds without the others being able to see us, but please try to stay silent. They can still hear us.”

Then she looked at Alyra who was fully aware of what she had been doing during the last few minutes. They nodded at each other knowing full well what they were about to do.

After 3 seconds Argul created the mirror image of themselves while making them invisible. Maintaining that required all of her mana generation. After 5 seconds she locked the image as it was, took Mia and then Argul and Alyra moved backwards at a 45° angle as fast as possible.

After about five meters they sat down again as they had been before and Argul let the image display their movements again. They couldn’t lock it for too long or it would look weird as nothing of them moved.

Mia looked with wide eyes at her own form that was sitting in the grass in front of them. “How?”

Argul nuzzled Mia’s ears a bit. “It isn’t all that difficult.” 

Alyra shook her head. It was, but she would not destroy her mothers illusion of the world right now. The girl should really give herself some credit.

Argul smiled at Mia. “You see, the light of the sun reflects on everything it hits a bit, though not as well as it would do on a mirror. Our eyes then use the reflected light to create an image of the world in our head.”

She hugged the little girl. “I just copied the way light reflects on us and projected it on the place we have been before. Then I broke the light around us in a way that you wouldn’t be able to see us, if you were not right next to us.”

Argul leaned back on her arms in thought. “I have never understood why magic always stops science in stories. It makes no sense as you can do magic so much more efficiently with the help of knowledge and with that science, so shouldn’t magic bring science to another height?”

It really was a wonder for Argul. With science all the magicians could just copie things that were already there and wouldn’t have to create things like illusions in an extremely complicated manner.

Mia turned around and looked at Argul, not really understanding what nonsense Argul had been talking about. Then she pouted a bit. “That sounds super hard to do!”

Argul smiled at that and ruffled Mia’s hair a bit. “You will get it one day, I’m sure.”

After a few more minutes the lead lady stepped outside the truck again with a relieved looking Arthur in tow. She made a weird hand sign to the soldiers that had still been looking over them and they all relaxed. Then she pointed at a random dude. ”You, do you confirm the existence of mana?” 

The guy looked around for some help, but found none. He scratched his head a bit awkwardly. “Sure do, though I don’t understand why you don’t ask the fox lady to show you some.”

Argul nodded to herself. Why not just do that? 

They could have also asked Arthur or Mia, but Argul guessed they had already done so with Arthur.

Still the guy sure had the guts to just question the leader of the people who had been pointing guns at them for the last half an hour. 

It was really awkward calling her woman and leader the whole time. Was her name that much of a secret?

The leader woman, yes we are now combining things, turned to regard Argul or at least her image. That was bound to end weirdly.

The woman nodded. “Argul right? Please show us some magic.”

Oh wow, where does the nice treatment come from?

Whatever Arthur told them made them a lot less cold.

Argul canceled the image of them and earned blinks from a lot of people. Then the whole group of refugees seemed to get the bright idea to activate their mana sense and looked at her.

The leader on the other hand turned to Arthur. “They're still here are they?”

Arthur looked at Argul who just shrugged and sighed. “She has likely not actually been where you have seen her for a while, though she never left and just sits a bit further away.”

Argul laid back, took a grass stalk to chew on like a badass and crossed her legs. Then she stopped her invisibility spell.

An opportunity seen, an opportunity taken.

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