Kitsune in the Shadows
Chapter 113 – Evacuation Order

As we made our way through the forest, we heard more and more calls for everyone to head for the gates, with Ava tensing up slightly each time… Not that I was any different… especially as I knew I could hear the voices coming from much further away than she could, both deeper in the forest and toward the gates.

At some point on our way back, we ran into an unexpectedly large group of people that seemed to have joined together as they were heading towards the town, picking up anyone they could.

They immediately reached out to us the instant we locked eyes with each other.

It was a large man wearing a helmet that covered his face who called out first, his voice easily carrying through the forest… although, all it ended up doing was making me flinch from how loud they were. Ava, however, just placed her palm on my back to stop me from moving any further away.

“It’s okay,” One of the other people from the group walked up to us, an archer with light brown hair, “We’re all heading in the same direction. We’re just taking everyone together in case something happens, and we would really like you to join us, just until we can get you three back to the city. How does that sound?”

Cattleya immediately tried to say something, but Ava pulled on her wrist and spoke up first, “We’ll follow you.”

“That’s great,” The archer said, immediately turning back to the rest of the group, “Keep these three in the centre! I won’t let any of you off if I see one of them lagging behind!”

Just like that, we were seamlessly merged into the group… in a way that felt more literal than I expected. Everyone was huddled incredibly close together, leaving only enough space to take a single step.

This group continued making their way through the forest, picking up a few individuals who looked a little lost and two more small parties. But thankfully, we, along with all the others, eventually made it to Haelmor’s gates without anything happening.

That wasn’t to say everything was alright, though, as there was an even larger crowd of people swarming around the gates, some clearly just trying to find out what was going on while some others were throwing their fists around in an attempt to get through.

The noise was far too much for me, so I held my hood down, forcing my ears against my head in an attempt to at least muffle the noise. Seeing this, Ava pulled both me and Cattleya in closer, saying something that I couldn’t make out.

Then, out of nowhere, I noticed someone’s gaze fall on me, one accompanied by a telltale slightly warm feeling. I looked up, quickly searching for the red hair that should accompany the gaze.

It didn’t take long before spotting Elenia, pointing directly at the three of us from inside the town. Immediately, two of the hooded figures with her then easily pushed their way through the crowd, heading directly for us.

As they got closer, they must have said something, as Ava started following behind them without any protest as they turned around and made their way back towards Elenia, with not even the guards at the gate giving us any more than a single glance.

“Thank the Gods I managed to find you three,” Elenia wrapped the three of us in a hug the moment we were close enough, forcing my grip off of my hood, “If something happened to the three of you just because I sent you out to collect some herbs, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.”

“What’s happening right now?” Ava asked.

“You don’t need to worry about that, alright?” Elenia said, releasing the three of us, “For now, just follow me. No matter what happens, I’m going to make sure it all works out. That’s my job after all.”

We weren’t even given the chance to ask where we were going before Elenia set off, two hooded figures at her sides and two at ours. I don’t know if it was supposed to make us feel safe, but all it really did was make me even more worried about what was actually going on.

The place we were taken to was down by the docks, with even more people running back and forth between groups with papers and other items flying all over the place. It had clearly been set up in a hurry, with crates being used as tables and a whole host of people seemingly barking orders out to whoever would listen.

“This is the section for Volpe Rossa, just stay here and listen to anyone you see wearing a red fox symbol, okay? You don’t need to pay anyone else any attention,” Elenia said as she hastily looked around the place, “In fact, I’ll just leave someone here with you. If someone you don’t recognise comes up to the three of you, just let them deal with it.”

As soon as she said that, one of the hooded figures took a step away from the other three before gesturing over to a few smaller crates, which the three of us took as seats almost immediately.

“Seriously, what’s going on right now?” Ava asked again, this time quite a bit more sternly, “The whole town seems to have gotten involved in this, yet no one is saying anything. I don’t like the idea of being left in the dark like this.”

“Look, I told you-” Elenia clenched her jaw and thought for a moment before leaning in closer, “Just… keep it quiet if you really must know… but… to keep a long story short, we were just following up on those unusual reports from the forest and accidentally stumbled on a nest.”

“A nest?” I questioned.

I hardly even heard anything inside the forest.

“That’s not the problem,” She whispered, “The adventurer guild and one of the other merchant guild reporting finding a similar nest… but each of the reports points to a different area of the forest.”

“And that alone is enough of a problem to cause this mess?” Cattleya asked.

“The problem isn’t the nests, it’s who they belong to… No one has seen anything enter or leave them, but… they were all lined with quite an extravagant choice of material. At least according to the report, we weren’t able to find it when we sent another group there.” She once again hesitated, “Someone just had to claim it was a dragon… even if it was, it couldn’t be more than a hatchling with the size of the nests… but a baby dragon is still a dragon. With the idea being spread around… we couldn’t just do nothing…”

“A dragon?” Cattleya was immediately lost in thought, “That…”

‘It’s not a dragon,’ Aria’s voice suddenly came through the pendant, ‘I’m still looking over whatever is going on, but I’m… pretty confident in saying that much.’

‘Then what-?’

‘Sister! Please calm-’ Aria’s words abruptly cut off.

“This is why I didn’t want to say anything. There is no proof of there being a dragon; if there were, we would already be on the water. No one here would be able to handle a dragon hatching.”

“… But what if it is?” Ava eventually asked.

“If we find out that it is, I’m packing everyone I can up on that ship and heading out to sea. A hatchling shouldn’t have the confidence to leave its territory just to chase us down… at least that’s the hope we’d have to hold onto,” She stood up straight again, recomposing herself, “But that’s nothing for you to think about right now, just stay here. We have a number of teams helping to sweep the forest, so if something comes up, we’ll be some of the first to know.”

“What are the chances of something like this happening?” Ava asked as she deflated a little, probably not expecting a real answer.

“Like I said, that’s not something for you to worry about. Leave that to people like me. It’s what I’m here for,” She then turned around, accepting a stack of papers from a rabbit beastkin who had run up to her, “On that note, I need to get back to work. Ask this man here if you feel hungry or anything. He’ll sort it out.”

With that last statement, she walked off, a new crowd of people forming around her as she made her way through the haphazard centre of operations.

…

‘Aria?’

There was no response.

…

‘Ovia?’

Again, nothing.

Ava wrapped her arm around me as she pulled me into her chest.

“It’ll all be fine, alright?” She said, despite her fingers trembling slightly, “E-Elenia knows what she’s doing. She has to.”

I just couldn’t find any words in that moment, let alone the right words, instead just wrapping my hand around hers in an attempt to try to calm her shaking, even if just a little.

…

“It is all starting to make sense now,” Cattleya suddenly stood up, her arms flailing about as she spoke, “The thief this whole time was a dragon hatchling. That would explain the strange targets. A baby would need a large amount of both food and mana in order to grow properly; that is why it went after the vessels with artefacts on board. That is why nothing ever appeared on the black market.”

“Cattleya, please, not now,” Ava reached out for her, but to no avail.

“Everything matches up much too well,” She said as she stepped just out of Ava’s reach, “We need to go back out there. For the first time since starting all of this, there is a viable culprit for everything that has been happening, and they happen to just be on the other side of that gate. All we need to do is go and deal with them, and all of this will finally be over. There is no reason not to-”

“Cattleya!” Ava shouted this time, “What is wrong with you?!”

“…” Cattleya froze up completely, her hands stopping midair.

“This isn’t some game,” Ava continued, “We don’t even know what’s actually out there, even Elenia said a dragon was just an idea someone had. Not that it would be any good for that to be right. What exactly do you think you would be doing by going out there right now? Let alone the fact that you want us to go with you?”

Cattleya again didn’t respond, just letting her arms fall to her sides.

“I know you have this grand delusion of who we are, but come on. Have you not seen enough to figure this out by now?” Ava put her hand on top of my head, in a vain attempt at covering my ears through my hood, “We’re nothing special. We’re not going to go out there and put ourselves in danger just because you want something that’s allegedly going to be targeted by this thief. You haven’t even told us what it is yet, but you want us to just throw ourselves out there?”

Ava?

I hugged her a little tighter.

“I… I know… But…” Cattleya admitted, “I know…”

“Then you should also know that we’re going to stay right here. If I can help it, I’m not letting anything happen to either of us,” Ava said, clearly fighting to keep talking by the way her nails started to dig into my shoulder, “And I really urge you to do the same.”

…

…

“I…” Cattleya looked down at us for a few moments before dejectedly sitting back down without another word.