At the time of separation, due to time constraints, Henry and Mira did not agree on a meeting place with the Kaleva side. And because of the limited means of communication, they are unable to contact each other or confirm the safety of others.

If you are in a situation of survival in the wild, the choice with the highest survival rate for the few people scattered with the large army is not to act alone, but to stay in place to recuperate.

Whether the searcher is experienced or not, the starting point of the search will inevitably be the last known location – in layman's terms, the location where both parties are separated, or the last place where the known lost person goes.

Staying where you are, or at least still nearby, and not moving around is more conducive to the search and rescue of later personnel, and on the other hand, it can save physical strength and survive for a longer time. Continuing to act without permission will make it more difficult to converge, and it is likely that you will be killed if you have little supplies left.

If you follow the tributaries of the Yongchuan River, at least in the same direction as the Kaleva Rivers, the chance of confluence will be greatly increased.

But that's exactly the problem. The impatient and high-profile approach of the samurai who led the attack was in line with the profile of a young and spirited leader, and such a character, when he realized that someone had fled, was bound to catch up with him in one go.

Based on this premise, convergence means that it increases the danger.

And considering that the three sages had no suitable boats when they fled, and that they had actually waded away on foot, the two lonely rows of horseshoe prints on the dirt around the soft swamp would obviously be the most obvious weather vane in a country where no one but the nobles were allowed to ride horses.

Experienced hunters can tell by the depth and distance of their footprints how heavy the imprint is and how quickly it is leaving.

A sage who is 195 centimeters tall and weighs 100 kilograms after wearing armor, even if he has been somewhat cleaned up during the checkpoint, the other party can still judge the fact that he is a tall and sturdy man who fights with those samurai guarding the pass.

The simple fact that those samurai were basically killed by a single blow is a powerful destructive power, which is not something that ordinary people can do. Add to this the fact that many of the fatal injuries came from above, not below, and they could tell from the fact that the attackers had a height advantage.

One of the things Henry has always taught Mira is that no matter how strong you have become, it's best to think of your opponent as your equal, rather than having a sense of superiority.

Superiority and self-confidence can indeed give you an advantage in situations such as socializing, but for combat professionals who lick the blood from the knife edge, once overconfident and careless, they will unknowingly fall into a place of no return.

If you think of the other party as someone who has the ability to judge your own general information through the details, and then use this assumption as a basis to carefully formulate a response plan to live a long life.

What happens if the pursuer is a sage?

First of all, the footprints left on the soft mud can roughly tell whether the horse is carrying weight. The Oiran of the swamp village, Sakura, was on the horse of the Roan Maiden. Together, she and Mira weigh about the same as a sage, and this kind of weight is a full load for the relatively short horses of the Moon Country.

The tall and strong Rigal horses were nearly twice as load-bearing, and knights with 105 to 110 kilograms of heavily armed horses could still charge at full speed with 40 kilograms of horse armor. However, the horses of the Moon Country could not do this, and they were no longer able to sprint with a weight of about 100 kilograms, so the footprints left by the horses were not only smaller in span and biased towards cruising speed rather than running speed, but also much deeper than usual.

In the case of fleeing for his life, he still carried such a weight, which proves that what he was carrying immediately was definitely not materials that could be discarded.

As a result, either there are more than one person in the car, or one of them is huge. Combined with the environment left over from the previous battlefield and the fact that the civilians of this country could not ride horses, the pursuing samurai could clearly judge that these two horseshoe prints were extremely suspicious with a little brain. Thus began to pursue them exclusively, or at least send a detachment.

In any case, we will definitely not turn a blind eye.

Compared to the Galevas, who left no visible traces on the waterway, Henry and Mira were more likely to be pursued. This is why they hurried away from the tributaries of the Yongchuan River at night when their footprints were not yet obvious, and walked in the direction of the Yongchuan River tributaries, looking for the reason for the hard ground that was not easy to leave traces.

Although this will increase the difficulty of the convergence, in the case of pursuing soldiers behind, it is more convenient for the three men and two horses who are lightly armed to escape than Temulun and the others with their families.

The unpredictable spring weather was strange again, and in the morning it was clear that the sky suddenly became cloudy in the afternoon.

As the group began to walk towards the hard ground, away from the low-lying area where the swamp was located, the vegetation gradually changed from weeds to shrubs and finally to intimate woods.

At the beginning of March, due to the slight warming of these two days, the flowers of some early spring trees have already bloomed early, including the popular cherry blossoms.

The wild species of cherry blossoms, which are native to the rolling mountain range, are not as beautiful as those cultivated in the wild. Still, the pale white and micropink petals are enough to stand out from the crowd.

It was only the cold wind that blew again that made these flowers, which had only been sparsely blooming for two or three days, quickly haggard again, and by the time the three men and two horses happened to pass by, the pieces withered.

The people of the Land of the Moon call the weather phenomenon of the wind carrying the snowflakes "blowing snow", and when the snowflakes are replaced by falling cherry blossom petals, it is called "cherry blowing snow".

The country has a lot of names for weather phenomena that sound quite beautiful to the people of Rigal.

Temperate, restrained, and full of rules and regulations, even the requirements for wording are extremely strict. And what Luo'an girl saw in the small fishing village and shrine after arriving at Crescent Island made her notice a small detail.

The education rate here is much higher than that of the major cities of the Padrossi Empire.

Paper and pencil can also be seen in ordinary houses, and even fishermen and hunters have some ability to write. This kind of thing would never have been possible without a country of long-lasting peace and strong cultural power.

It's a complex country, just like any other country. It has its own advantages and its disadvantages. And in many cases, the two are not opposites, but rather intertwined.

Strict class relations and a strong central power make it easy to start with universal education. Mira only needs to assume that there are many countries on the west coast of the continent of Rigal, where she is born, and that there are 5 or 6 languages in the vicinity of Avenera alone, where literacy education is carried out, to clearly see the gap with the land of the moon.

It's easy to say that the West Coasters have a mixed lingua franca based on the common language of the common people, Avenella. Both the Luoan Maiden and the Sage speak this language. However, there is no written language in the lingua franca, and even Avenela does not have a real written system, and when the common people occasionally want to write something with it, they do so directly from the Sivalier alphabet according to their own pronunciation.

Two people may spell the same word in completely different ways, for example, one person writes knight as "Nayte" and another person writes "Neite". Although the speaker of the language himself can understand the meaning by roughly reading and half-guessing, it is obviously not at all suitable for use as a formal written language. In fact, even after Edward became a king and strongly supported Arvenella's culture, in many cases he still had to use the more mature Sivalier language to record things.

Is it possible to promote literacy education in the language of the knightly country? This is obviously not successful, because the West Coast not only has many kingdoms, but also has a strong sense of national independence. Unless there is a strong central power such as the Land of the Moon to carry out outreach education on a generational basis, it will never be possible to achieve this level of literacy universality.

This is a country that restricts individual thoughts, and due to the existential crisis brought about by the geographical environment, the social culture of the Moon Country is more collective and orderly than individual will.

"Class" is more important than "individual", and if a peasant rebels against a samurai who has harmed him, it will not be seen as a conflict between two people, but as a disobedience of the lower class to the upper class, and all the local peasants will be punished.

From this point of view, the Land of the Moon is undoubtedly an extremely repressive and rigid society in the eyes of the people of Rigal.

But.

It is precisely because of this that it has such a splendid cultural accumulation.

Concentrated talents, concentrated ideas, and concentrated productivity.

The literacy rate that reached the peasant class was only one of them, and the baths enjoyed in the small fishing villages were also part of this powerful cultural promotion ability.

Whether a country is prosperous or not, it is not enough to look at the people at the top. Because even in the poorest areas, there are lords who loot the people's fat and ointment, and thus have fine clothes and food. This kind of simple performance of a few people eating and drinking spicy food and more people in poverty is not enough to prove the strength of the country. And if a country can allow people in the middle and lower strata of society or even the bottom to enjoy basic education and convenience in all aspects of life, this kind of power is real and low-key.

The Land of the Moon is very strong, and the culture here is very, very deep, far deeper than many, many countries in the world of Rigal.

Even if it is true that the social structure is now beginning to show a faint crack, it will take a long time to expand to change the entire country.

Like a long-lived old turtle slowly walking towards his deathbed, what the group sees now is the process of its first step.

The bleak cold wind blew off the wild cherry blossoms that had just bloomed, and walking on the weedy path, the Luo'an girl, who had not eaten enough, felt a little cold in her body.

It was difficult to find enough food in the early spring in the wild, and it was clear that they had no time to search for supplies as they hurriedly separated and set out on their escape.

Henry gave up his cloak to Sakura, who had previously only worn a fancy dress, and the wool coat provided some warmth. Despite this, their bodies that didn't eat enough still didn't produce much calories, and both Mira and Sakura's hands and feet were a little cold and numb.

But the situation was even more serious than the horses under their seats, the two horses were already very tired after a day's march, and they began to gasp for breath after a lack of food and grass, and the white mist was united in the cooling air.

As herbivores, horses should ideally have to eat constantly throughout the day. Because the nutrients provided by the fiber of plants are extremely limited, they need to eat more food than meat to get enough nutrients.

But eating grass is not as simple as many people think, "grass is not just a random spot all over the mountains", if you eat the wrong plant, it is not uncommon for the war horse to fall to the ground or die immediately.

Horses that are tended to are usually fed on specially grown pasture with carrots or berries added to it for nutrition.

But trying to pick berries from the bushes in early spring is tantamount to a dream.

"It's time for them to rest. The girl said to her teacher with some weakness, and the sage who was on guard in front of her looked back and nodded.

Since the mercenary profession has achieved a little success, has the money to buy supplies and has a certain status and is respected, the life of the two in the wild on the Rigal continent is actually very good.

It is easy to go from thrift to luxury, and it is difficult to go from luxury to thrift. Luo'an girl, who was accustomed to bringing enough tents, small pots, rations, and even began to pursue delicious tastes, suffered again after arriving in Crescent Island, and felt even more nostalgic for the life where everything was ready.

But they are unfamiliar with the place here, and the mercenary guild is extinct in Crescent Island, so they can't even try to take on missions to make money or seek help from the station.

I can only support myself.

Disembarking from their horses, the three of them found a suitable and somewhat sheltered spot to rest.

It was completely dark, the wind was howling, and although it was only about three o'clock in the afternoon, it was already as dark as evening.

Before the cold spring rains fell, they had to build shelters from the elements.