About an hour later, Kai awakened to find himself back in his own room.
'Was it all a dream?' He thought to himself, however, he definitely felt the connection with his clone who was with Bob, so it could not be. The only other option was that Pops brought them all back to the castle.
'No! I need to bring Pops and the remaining soldiers out of here.' Kai thought to himself as he pulled his tired body out of bed and walked slowly towards the bedroom door.
*Click*
Unfortunately, he found out that the door was locked, and immediately Kai went on alert.
'System, are you able to scan the entire manor once more?'
[Establishing Task]
[Time until completion: 0s]
[Task complete]
[No. The system has only been able to collect 10 mana thus far, most of it while you were not in combat.]
'Alright then. Just keep-'
Just as Kai was about to finish giving instructions to the system, the door unlocked on its own and opened, revealing Pops.
"Haha! You are perfectly fine Kai!"
"Yes, yes. But Pops, why was the door locked?"
"Oh, there might be some rats still alive in the manor who might try to attack you in your sleep. So, I locked the room such that it can only be opened with the key in my possession or break the door or window; meaning they would have to alert me about their presence, either way, to get to you."
"Oh. Alright, then Pops. But before that. I need to tell you something very important."
"Go on," The Baron said as he closed the door behind him and entered Kai's room.
"Jason and about 200 soldiers have betrayed you, Pops, and are killing all the villages in your territory. I heard this from a dying soldier who was part of those originally 200 traitors but soon realised what was happening and tried to escape, being gravely wounded in the process."
"…" The baron drowned slightly, but not too much. He had expected something similar already.
"Pops. We should leave the barony as soon as possible. We cannot take on 200 heavy armoured cavalry with just 20 men."
"…" The Baron's frown grew slightly.
"Pops. I met mother. She told me that if I was seeing this message, I should leave as quickly as possible. She said to head east, then figure things out after crossing at least two baronies along the way." Kai decided to add in a white lie. Technically, what he said was not the truth, but neither was it a lie. His mother had told him to go in the opposite direction of his clone, and since it was going west, he should head east.
"What?!" The Baron's eyes widened upon hearing this shocking piece of news, but only after a few seconds, he quickly recovered and nodded to Kai.
"Alright. We will depart in half an hour. Pack your most valuable items, bring a few pairs of clothes with you, and meet me at the back gate."
"Alright." Kai nodded and let the Baron leave the room before closing the door behind him, and beginning to rummage through his items. He found a few precious gems which he carefully hid in the lining of his boots, and put on his trusty dagger on his waist. He also found the piece of silver which Bob had given him had made him faint due to a large amount of mana entering his body.
Kai also packed a few extra pairs of clothes and a few gold coins. Lastly, he made sure to take a few books with him to have something to do along the way. His clone was also getting rather bored of listening to the idiotic names Bob was coming up for him, and reading a few fantasy books would definitely alleviate some of this boredom.
In the passage outside Kai's room, Kai was facing the baron solemnly.
"Pops, do we have oil? Or something that burns very quickly?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Mother told me to burn down the manor before leaving. Especially Dad's room."
"…" The Baron hesitated for a long time.
"That was where I met mother. She told me most secrets have already been destroyed, but in case something malfunctioned and did not get destroyed, she told me to burn everything before escaping."
Kai was initially going to do this before leaving, but then thought that it might alert the enemies around him, so decided to do it after he took care of as many of them as he could. Ultimately though, he ended up saving Morgan and fainting on the spot.
Therefore, now that he was here and had the opportunity, Kai decided to follow through with his mother's instructions.
"Alright," The Baron nodded and led a few soldiers to drench the manor in the oil used for lamps, which they had enough of to last for all of winter, before lighting it on fire.
…
"Good! Men! We set off now! The smoke from the fire will alert the enemies. We will head north. Let's go!" The Baron said as he pulled the horse's reins to spur it into moving where he wanted.
Kai was on a horse behind the baron and tied to the Baron's own horse such that it would follow without any issues. After all, Kai did not know horse riding.
…
Meanwhile, Kai's clone was steadily walking when he heard Bob exclaim. Turning around, he saw a teary-faced Bob looking at him.
"I totally forgot about Kai!"
"…"
"Hicc… I left Kai, I left the Baron, I left the Village, I left father. I am all alone now…"
"Kai is fine. And so is the Baron. They have already escaped. Besides, you are not alone. You have me." The clone said.
"You… That's right! I have you, and you have me!" Bob said as the hopeless expression in his eyes faded to reveal the light of excitement.
"I can call you Yu from now on."
"… Alright." The clone agreed despite not liking the name out of pity for Bob. After all, he too had the same feeling of comradery that Kai had with Bob, only he hid it well.