Legends: The Emerald World

Getting out of the mote and into the open river, the group kept swinging with the current for over an hour, trying to get as far away from the dragon without leaving any smell. The harder they are to track down the better.

After such a long swim in the cold water, Shin and the old prisoner started to pant heavily, their faces paled and their lips turned blue as their eyes stared mindlessly at the horizon.

Ase was already carrying Shin but when the old prisoner started drowning, the large prisoner carried him on his back.

The captain swam in the front and scared any predator using his magical aura, which was safer.

The magical aura disappears immediately as the residual magic melts into the air, leaving no traces. With how sensitive dragons were, killing the monsters or using magic to scare them away would be a death sentence.

"We should get out!" The large prisoner growled, "They won't last any longer." He could feel the old man on his back slowly dying and Shin in the back didn't look any better.

"Can't they hold for another hour? This isn't even a warm-up." the captain had gone through rigorous military training and he could swim for hours in much colder water without a problem.

"Damn you imperial!" He growled back, "Not everyone is a trained plundering bastard like you are. They aren't blessed with a body like mine…" He glared at the captain, "This is a frail old man and a starved kid…" He snorted, "I guess you won't even care…I saw your people kill children in cold blood in our villages."

"And you lazy bastards never assisted in the war! Who do you think is fighting in the frontlines of the demon war?" The captain growled back with a toned voice, he was doing his best to stay calm and conserve energy, yet this prisoner behind him was slowly getting on his nerves.

"We've supplied you with everything we got for decades, it's been fifty years!" The large prisoner growled, "But no…you're just a bunch of liars, we've found out that our food is going to fatten up your nobles and royals, not a single crumb is making it to the army."

The large prisoner shook his head, "We spoke against your rules, you, soldiers like you are starving on the frontlines. But how do you repay us for speaking up, invading our land, murdering our family, and robbing us of our food harvests."

The empire borders the demon-infested continent and hosts the burning battlefield of the human/demon war that has been raging for over two centuries. The other kingdoms have gone to support the empire by providing many things like rations, soldiers, weapons, and much more since they are in the back and can't advance to fight directly.

But as time went on, the empire's royalty and nobles found out that they could embezzle some of those funds to their merit while keeping the army going on with the bar minimum needed.

With the high generals and officials siding with the nobles, the soldiers found themselves stuck in an endless cycle of fighting against the demons and starving to death in the frigid cold.

As the other kingdoms and nations found out about the imperial exploitation of their funds they halted their support and withheld everything. The empire was now a tyrannical superpower, they used their collected wealth and powerful army to fight a war on both sides, holding the demon's invasion while simultaneously invading their neighboring nations and expanding rapidly.

The land they are in now in the region of Blackwood, before belonging to the kingdom of Bluemoon, now, it is ruled by the empire that just colonized it. While the captain wants to take the prisoners and escape back to the empire, the rest want to flee to the Bluemoon empire behind the borders. It's their home nation and they would be rescued and sent to a safe city, while the captain would end up as a war prisoner.

The problem is that they can't split up. If the captain went back empty-handed to the empire, he'd probably get executed as a sacrificial lamb and shoulder all the blame for the destruction of the newly acquired fort.

The prisoners on the other hand need him to be able to scare monsters away without leaving a trace. Even with how strong Ase is, she can't even sense her magic, let alone produce an aura. She's a pure physical fighter, unlike the captain who is a spellsword.

With the old man and Shin at their limit, the group was forced to get out of the water and head into the thick oak forest that this region is known for. The captain scared the crocs sunbathing at the riverside as the Ase sniffed the ground and looked for a cave they could hide inside for a while.

The large forest was named the Dark Maze thanks to its thick and dense oak trees and vegetation, making it an extremely hard terrain to traverse and navigate. Armies avoided it like the plague, and its existence was the reason Bluemoon lost this region, they couldn't send their army and supplies to the fort in time, so it ended up being conquered in a siege that lasted for over a month.

After the fort was secured, the empire's army went to the neighboring villages and robbed all of their food and rations that they were saving for the winter, they took all the capable men as war slaves and sent them to the demon/human war frontlines while everyone else was put into labor camps.

Shin was already too weak to be either one of those two so he was sent to the fort's jail, and the same with all the other prisoners. Even the large one was lame on his left leg, making him a burden to the empire's army if they decided to make him a war slave. The reason for his lameness is an arrow that he took in the knee.

Ase found a medium-sized cave that was close to the riverside in which they could hide. Igniting a flame was out of the question as the dragon would immediately spot them when he woke up, the best they could do was hide and hope for the best.

Inside the dark cave, Ase kept Shin in a tight hug to warm him up with her body heat. The captain sat in his little corner, checking his weapons in silence. On the other hand, the large prisoner tended to the old man.

The only one who didn't get wet was the little spider who avoided water by staying on Ase's head. Ase had decided to name Charlotte, shorted into Char, referring to the spider's charred black color.

Char, The Black Spider rushed out of the cave to find food, she alone had the energy to search the forest. But she also must be careful, this wasn't the dull and predator-free walls of the fort, but the wild Dark Maze.