Shades of the New World

"Eleven Two, you're going to accompany our friends here to the nearest border control unit, which should be located about 20 kilometers south from here. Go there, explain the situation and the personnel there should know what to do next. After you're finished, we'll meet at our original location," Sannah ordered to Secretive Scholar.

"Yes, Eleven One," the latter nodded and tied up the two unconscious men to the layeq and had them float near him, "Alright, boys, guess we're going a little trip together."

Weirdly, Evin could see a hint of hope in the layeq's eyes, as he comfortably floated under Secretive Scholar's spell.

[Well, guess anything's better than their current circumstances, huh?'] Evin said to Runa amusedly.

[Are Eleven Two and Eleven One code names?] Runa asked.

[I guess. Pretty sure Eleven's the code name of the team, and we're just the numbers. I would be Eleven Six by that logic.]

A minute later, Secretive Scholar was flying away southwards with the three-man group next to him. After they were sufficiently far away, Sannah took off her mask and said to False Lord.

"Yazuran, search this forest and try to find the ruin that matches the previous description. I have a feeling it might be connected to our mission somehow. If you can't find anything in two days, you can give up and follow behind. If I'm not mistaken, there should be another ruin five kilometers or so northwest of here, one that we've found before… but I'm not quite sure if it's the same one. Go and check that out as well. If you feel that they're sufficiently similar, you can forget about the two days and come straight to us."

False Lord, who was apparently named Yazuran, nodded slightly and started flying towards the northwest.

Thug #1 and Ertu took off their masks as well, so Evin did the same. Sannah looked over at Evin and told him some stuff.

"Great work just now. It's also great timing, since we've been lacking a good Dark Mage for a while. I was able to fill in the spot through some tricks, but naturally, I was nowhere good as you are," Sannah started with some praise.

"Thank you. I was actually quite surprised at how strong the mages were," Evin replied.

"Ah, about that. I feel that you're too curious as a Dark Mage, or someone who should specialize in stealth and assassinations," Sannah said.

"What do you mean?" Evin asked. It was a bit weird to be scolded for being curious as well.

"In my opinion, you could've taken care of the three mages much quicker than that. I reckon you had the means to knock them out in the first few seconds of the fight, as your World of Storms spell stunned the group for a good three seconds. During that time lapse, it looked like you decided to focus on only one mage, even though you could've attacked and injured the others as well."

Evin thought about the fight for a moment and agreed with Sannah's judgement. He could've sent the other two sufficiently big punches of air, or he could've slammed them down to the ground with the Heavy World. But he decided to see how the other two reacted, wasting precious seconds that might've cost him his life if one of them was much stronger than they appeared. 

'I guess I can see why I'm being scolded for being curious,' Evin thought.

"Usually, Dark Mages prefer to end fights before they even begin. After all, they usually hold the initiative in starting the fights with their normally unparalleled stealth abilities. Especially in the dark. After all, not everyone can create a Dark Room like you do," Sannah added, before shrugging lightly, "But, this is just a little tip from me, you don't have to take it too seriously. For now, let's just keep flying towards our original destination. We'll have plenty of time to talk about things afterwards."

Sannah then started to float into the air, and the remaining two others followed behind. Evin also got onto the air and the group continued their journey Eastward.

[I don't even know what she's so mad about, humph,] Runa said, referring to Sannah.

[Well, it's true that we could've taken out the other two much faster if we tried hard enough. I probably didn't even need to dive in like that and instead could've just sent a few strong spells. After all, I'm not so weak in regards to my spellcasting,] Evin replied, analyzing the situation better.

[But we did take them out in the end. There weren't any problems with taking things slowly, right? If we tried to do things too rashly, we might've ended up in a worse position than that, no? Like you said, we probed the enemies with your World of Storms spell, while also making sure to take care of one of them effectively,] Runa insisted.

Evin thought a bit and realized that the skinshifter was right as well. In one way, it was best for him to diligently focus on one guy instead of trying to randomly trying to hit everyone.

After thinking about things a bit more, Evin even started wondering if this was another test by Sannah, who was maybe trying to see how easily convinced Evin was.

'Now I'm just overthinking things,' shaking his head, Evin started to focus on the flight, scouting the area for anything else out of the ordinary. 

But, the rest of the journey was rather uneventful, so after a little less than two hours, Evin saw some clouts of wispy smoke rising from the edge of the forest. Soon enough, he saw the shape of a town appear from behind the trees.

The town didn't look like anything special, beautiful, or nice to live in. If there was a Tribe of some sorts here, they definitely weren't anything notable as Evin wasn't able to find any unique symbols or banners depicting said Tribe. It reminded Evin more of the City of Smog he visited a long time ago.

'Is it just me, or are the towns that don't have a Tribe affiliation in the North feel much more depressing than the other towns? Even the towns from Anna's memories seem more lively than this,' Evin thought, before shaking his head, 'I shouldn't make such hasty judgements, I've only been to like 3 towns in total, after all.'

Of course, the atmosphere here was much better than Kena's neglected city that was probably just a glorified prison for the residents inside, as Evin was starting to suspect lately.