My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World
Chapter 260: Migration Protocol

Chapter 260: Migration Protocol

The night that we arrived at the border of Balinesia, we had to wait at the walls for some time while the guards completed the immigration paperwork for the families we escorted.

Out of all the countries we visited, Balinesia was the only one that had a very strict method for immigration.

Basically, any time that outsiders arrived at their borders with the intention of moving into their country, they had to go through a series of interviews to determine if they were good citizens.

I didn’t think it was the most effective method, but it was the best they could do to avoid bringing in criminals from other nations.

When it came to visitors that wouldn’t be staying forever, like my group, we had to tell them how long we planned on staying in Balinesia. Then, they would write it down on their records.

If we overstayed our welcome, they would send guards to look for us and deport us, which I thought was a bit severe.

Nonetheless, when I told the guards that Melina and I were sages who were attending the assembly, they gave us a permit that allowed us to stay however long we wanted.

After our group was given clearance to enter, we marched inside the walls and noticed that half of the people we were escorting hadn’t come out yet.

One of the immigrants told me that, for whatever reason, two of the families were being heavily interrogated by the guards, which made me a little worried.

One of the families that was missing was a mother with two children, and the other was a couple with two boys, so it made no sense to me why they were being so strict with them.

"I’ll go check..." I said to everyone while I returned to the inside of the walls where they were keeping the families.

Two guards stopped me at the door and asked if there was anything wrong with my clearance.

"No, my permit is fine. But I’m still waiting for some people..." I said.

It was obvious that I was waiting for the two families they were keeping inside, as we were literally the only ones crossing their most dangerous border at nighttime.

"Do you know how long they are gonna be kept inside?" I asked the guard, but he seemed clueless about the situation.

Since sages had a high degree of authority in the nation, I asked them to let me in, and they had no choice but to obey.

There were a bunch of rooms inside the border walls that were used for interrogating the newcomers, so I used my "search" spell to look for them.

Seeing that the families were being kept inside two different rooms adjacent to each other, I quickly made my way to the first one.

Inside, two guards were talking to the single mother with her two kids, and she seemed to be on the brink of tears.

"What’s going on here?" I asked, startling the guards and making them turn around.

"S-Sage Ichiro, we are conducting an interrogation. We believe this woman’s husband was a criminal..." said one of the guards.

My name and Melina’s had already spread throughout their nation, as there weren’t many sages in the world, so I wasn’t surprised the guards knew it.

"Even if the husband is a criminal, he isn’t here. Is he?" I said to the guards.

"R-right, but the protocol says that we need to make sure she won’t be a threat," the guard continued.

I sighed with annoyance. "Lady, what is your name?" I asked the mother.

"H-Honya..." she nervously replied.

"Can you tell us what happened to your husband?" I asked, but the woman glanced at her two children with apprehension.

"Oh, I understand..." I said, snapping my fingers and using sound magic to cover the kid’s ears.

"Now they can’t listen to our words," I continued.

After Honya confirmed that her children couldn’t listen to a word of what we were saying, she told us everything that she had been through.

Since commoners in Guanghua were being kidnapped and turned into slaves for the nobility, most of the farming villages became abandoned as the workers had been taken.

Honya’s husband owned a farm, and wanting to protect his family, he took them to a remote settlement and started robbing the mansions of the nobility.

It was the only choice they had to survive until he got caught and turned into a slave, putting a target on his wife and children’s backs.

The last words he said to her was to "escape this hell if I don’t come back," so she was following her husband’s wishes.

After she had finished telling the whole story, I looked at the guards with my arms crossed and an unamused expression that said, "I told you so."

"Now, will you let them in?" I asked the guards.

"Yes, of course, Sage Ichiro..." replied one of them with a fist on his chest and a slight bow.

Next, I went to the other room, where they were interrogating a family of four.

The guards told me that they had found some gold trinkets inside the mother’s backpack and were trying to see if it was stolen.

The family seemed nervous, but the mom looked defiant, as if she was ready to receive a punishment.

"Guys, I understand it’s strange for commoners to have expensive stuff like this, but don’t you think you are overreacting a little?" I said to the guards as I inspected the backpack.

There were two gold trinkets, one cup with red gems, and a small chandelier, so I truly didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

"Lady, did you steal these?" I asked with a gentle tone.

"I did," she said confidently.

’Okay... She could have just said no, and we would’ve been done with this...’ I thought.

In reality, I couldn’t care less if she stole those things or not, as they were probably taken from a noble’s home.

"I see. Did you take them from a noble in Guanghua?" I continued.

"That’s right, I took it from the man who enslaved my sister!" she exclaimed.

*sigh* "Let these people in..." I said to the guards.

"Sage Ichiro, are you sure?"

"I am. I’ll buy the stolen goods from her, so now they are mine..." I continued, pulling out a small bag with gold coins.

I was definitely overpaying for the trinkets, but I had enough money not to care about it.

The woman had risked her life to get something that would provide for their family if they made it to Balinesia, and I didn’t want her efforts to go to waste.