Gathered in a tunnel deep underground, Kayn watched as parents said their goodbyes to their children, hoping to meet again in the future. Kayn felt pain in his heart as he thought of Lara, but it wasn't time to try and find her yet, there were still things that he needed to do.
As he stood reminiscing, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked over to see Clara beckoning him to follow her to a more private area within the chamber, so he followed behind her until she stopped and stared straight at where his eyes would be behind his hood.
"Kayn, if something happens, I'll stay behind while you continue on with everyone else. I may not be a fighter, but I can stall for time while everyone else gets away. Promise me that you'll keep them safe, and I'll promise that I'll provide the time you need."
Kayn reached up and pulled his hood back so that Clara could clearly see his face and he gave her a soft smile, "Not happening. If I'm honest with you, besides myself, you're the only one I care about making it out of here alive. Not only have you been kind to me and been a friend since our first unfortunate meeting, but you're also the mother of my favorite student. I could never leave you behind. Instead, I'll promise that I'll get you out of here at all costs so that you can start a new life."
Clara stared at Kayn, but her stoic expression soon broke and tears began to form in her eyes. "What if I don't want to start a new life? I don't even know what to do now that my family is gone..." her voice trailed off.
Kayn understood her pain as he had felt the same depression when he lost his family, only he had Lara to keep him going whereas Clara has no one.
"I know it's hard, trust me, but you'll find something to keep you going. It will all turn around eventually, I promise. In the meantime, though, no matter where you end up, someone will always be in need of healing. My advice? Focus on that, until you find your reason to continue on. If you want, I can even meet up with you after all is said and done. I'll help you find your purpose."
The gentleness and kindness Kayn spoke with caused Clara to break down and sob like a child. Kayn took a step forward and pulled her into his chest, just to give her the warmth of an embrace. He could only guess this was the first time she felt vulnerable enough to let it all out ever since this whole thing started.
Knowing that nothing he said would bring her any peace of mind, he silently held her until her sobbing and hiccups finally came to a stop. He released her as she stepped away, rubbing the tears and snot from her face with her sleeve.
"I apologize, I've shown you something unsightly."
"You've done nothing Clara, everyone needs to let it out on occasion or else it will just fester and bring us further into the abyss." Kayn spoke as he snapped his fingers and cleaned the mess off of both of their robes in an instant.
Clara showed a small smile at his action, "You never cease to impress me, you know? Also, did you mean what you said? That you would meet up with me and help me?"
"Of course. It may take me a bit to finish up everything here, but I promise that I will come find you after I reunite with my sister."
"Thank you…thank you for your kindness Kayn." Clara spoke as she looked into Kayn's bright crimson eyes. Everything about him at this moment screamed that he was dependable, and if she was younger and knew he didn't have someone waiting for him, maybe she would have tried to stick herself to his side.
"You're welcome. For now, let's gather up with the group so that we can get everyone, including you, to safety in order to start looking toward that brighter future, shall we?"
Clara nodded and they returned to the group after Kayn pulled his hood back up. Clara joined up with the people who would be leaving while Kayn joined Talaro at the front of the group to address everyone on how they would be moving.
"Alright everyone, those who are coming with me, please move to my right." After Kayn spoke, a portion of the group split off and stood to Kayn's right side. The majority of them were normal without a core, but Kayn counted his lucky stars that at least a third of them were at the 1st stage or higher.
If he assigned the two 5th stage warriors that were coming along with him to carry three each, and the other 4 to carry one or two if they were able, they might be able to carry all of the non-mages. Even if all of the kids were over 10 years old and they were about to be carried around like sacks of potatoes, all that mattered was the speed at which they moved.
Kayn then assigned people to carry the kids and once everyone was ready, Kayn and the two 5th stage warriors carried one on their back and one under each arm, while the rest only had one or two under their arms or on their backs.
Fortunately, Kayn didn't need his arms to cast his spells or else he would have to make due with only carrying one on his back. In the case they ran into danger, they came up with a plan on how to pass off the kids so that they could retaliate long enough to escape.
With everyone ready and lined up at the wall of the barrier, Kayn began casting spells silently in his head. He was layering multiple spells on top of the group, including spells for heat suppression, noise suppression, mana suppression, scent suppression, and the most important spell, a light bending illusion to make them invisible.
He wished he knew illusions better, but he had never had the time to properly learn them. If only Yelena was here, she would have been able to hide the entire group from sight quite easily.
Kayn added a few more concealment spells and nodded to Emperor Talaro who nodded back.
"Good luck everyone, we will see you again." With those words, he opened the barrier only as large as the tunnel was. Once Kayn saw the barrier open, he dashed through, quickly followed by the rest of the group.
He could only move as fast as the slowest carrier of the group, but it would be better than everyone walking. He then cast a spell to constantly push them forward with wind mana, further enhancing the group's speed.
Kayn estimated that with their current pace and no unexpected situations, they would be able to exit the city within five days. However, if he included the time it would require for the weaker members to rest, he estimated at least seven days. They would also need to find safe zones to rest in as well.
The biggest factor in this plan's success aside from Kayn himself, was the fact that the tunnel they were taking was only known by the royal family and that it would take them all the way to the middle ring.
Being able to skip the entire inner ring was a huge boon as that was where the majority of the danger was located. However, without Kayn's concealment abilities, the enemy would have sensed them moving underground, so it was really only possible to use this route because of him.
…
The first few days passed by without incident and the group progressed to the wall between the middle and outer rings, but at that point a long break was needed. The weaker carriers were exhausted and pushing them further would only slow the group down to detrimental speeds.
They found one of the few areas unoccupied by undead or Carnet and settled in the basement of one of the larger buildings. Even the strongest of the group rested in shifts, all except for Kayn who had to maintain his spells no matter if they were moving or resting.
Due to having extremely high-quality mana and with his core being at the 4th stage now, he would be able to maintain having multiple low-cost spells active 24 hours a day for a couple of weeks at the very least. While keeping the spells active and his Mana Sense fully extended, he closed his eyes and began circulating the Void Star technique to further replenish his mana.
Clara soon sat down next to him and placed her hands on his back while casting a soothing light elemental spell. "Not that you need it, but I figured I could help your body relax and ease up from some of the stress of keeping this entire group safe."
She was right, Kayn didn't exactly need it, but it was appreciated none-the-less. "Thank you, Clara."
…
This pattern continued over the next four days when they finally reached the outer walls. Now came the most difficult part as they couldn't exit through one of the main gates, or over the wall as there were just too many enemies around.
This was where the memories that he extracted from William DeMarco came into play. Kayn led them to one of the many slave smuggling routes and swept it with his Mana Sense before shaking his head and leading them to the next.
In total, the group had to spend another full day moving from tunnel to tunnel before they found one that wasn't discovered and occupied by either undead or Carnet forces. The tunnel was on the northwestern part of the wall, which worked perfect for Kayn's plans as he wanted to head west outside of the city for a little while before turning north.
It was only his assumption, but Kayn figured that the more northwestern the group went, the safer they would be. Carnet and Inmortuea were more focused on the southern and eastern portions of Mancea. Sure, they had swept through most of the empire by now, but they didn't keep many forces stationed in the more secluded areas, at least he assumed this would be true.
Upon exiting the smuggling tunnel, Kayn silently killed an entire group of 2nd stage mages from the Carnet Empire using different enhanced variations of the Magic Bullet spell. He thanked his lucky stars once again that they weren't undead as that could have led to them being discovered if the undead were the kind that were linked to their master.
…
Kayn ended up leading the group far further than he originally planned to. It had already been 16 days since he left the city, but he just couldn't find a good place to separate from them. Even far away from Palatine he was still sensing the occasional 5th stage or higher undead patrolling the area.
On the 18th day, Kayn stopped running suddenly without any prior warning causing the people running behind him to almost crash into each other. They all went on alert, but Kayn didn't seem to be getting ready for battle.
Instead, he tilted his head and began walking towards the cliff of a plateau they were traveling along the side of. Kayn squinted his eyes once he was standing in front of the rock-face. Something felt off about it to his Mana Sense, but he couldn't quite make out what it was.
All of the sudden, the greyish brown rock-face turned into a pitch-black cavern and Kayn heard a voice from inside the dark, "Kid?"