I spent the rest of the day helping him in the stall while keeping a low profile. We went to his house after he closed the stall. The invaders were doing a curfew everyday during the 17th hour. He asked me to find a way to hide myself with my magic for about ten minutes until they were gone.
"I will come back after they are gone." I lied to him.
For the whole day, I was planning on going to the village to rescue the hostages but lacked an excuse. From what he said, he assumed that they were being kept in the mansion. The leader of the invaders had also told them that they were giving the hostages inadequate food and he could raise the amount according to the increase in production. I took with me a large bag of food and energy drinks which i put on a cart. I did not use the road through the market into the forest instead I walked around the market so as to enter the village from the west. Not only did that prevent me from running into the invaders inside the market but it also shortened the distance I was going to travel from the forest to the mansion. I drank some of the energy drinks.
I entered the forest, the invaders were here and there so walking around them was easy that I only teleported like two times. Inside the village their numbers had just increased twice or lower. They were far apart from each other, leaving a huge radius between them that I was walking through unnoticed. The first thing I decided to do was to secure a way out first. I teleported underground the mansion to see if the escape tunnels were still usable.
Lucky was still on my side yet not, the tunnels and mazes had been turned into cells keeping the hostages inside. I was lucky to find them unguarded but unlucky since the best escape route was closing. The enemy was really something else, he even had his own Geomancer and knew that we had these tunnels prepared. The enemy was the definition of cruel leaving people underground were it was hot and smelly since they were not allowed to bath at all.
"The legend is true " an older woman said with a relieved smile on her face
"I can't believe you people are still believing in that crap."
To her I was supposed to be the so called Tranquilis, I wasn't surprised to hear that, that was my people always talking about make believe stuff, escaping from reality. I handled the food to most of them.
"Kigu is that you." A voice of a girl was coming from behind me
I turned around to see who she was. It was IRATEKA, my sister. I teleported into the cell she was in for her to confirm that it was really me. She became angry at me because I had gotten her mother killed the week before. She looked at me like she had heard that I did that on purpose. I indeed felt guilty for what I had done that day, but if I was her I wouldn't have resented my brother for a mistake he did while trying to save the family.
She had that face which said "none of this could have happened if we had stayed inside the house hiding."
But eventually the attackers could have found us anyway. I mean I saw my neighbors hiding in the first place, but there she was sharing the cell with her and her husband had been killed. I wanted to spend time explaining things to her so that I could restore our bond but the attackers were going to come back some time so I had to get out there.
"I will manage to get only Ten of you out."
With a total amount of Enerflux a master had, the number of people I could be able to take all the way to the forest was six or seven given that we had to teleport at every point we run into an invader. Since I had gotten their hopes up telling them a number as low as five was a let down and I did not want to keep letting people down anymore. Plus I could tell how desperate they all were to get out of that dump.
"Take the children, we will be alright." a woman suggested and they all agreed with her.
They were indeed in a desperate situation yet they prioritized the safety of their children first. The children were aged from three to ten, every other child above that age range was taken to work. The farmer's were working 24/7 so that required a lot of assists and that did not stop from male children only, girls were also taken. And women with children below that age were in another room inside the mansion.
They were sixteen and I thought I was going to be able to handle six more. I directed them all towards my shadow, I was lucky that they were a left in one cell. Before I left I made a promise to all of the remaining people that I was going to come back for all of them. Inorder to save my Enerflux, we had to walk all the way to the forest. I chose to use the roofs as the best path since not many of the invaders were there plus it was so dark that we couldn't be seen moving there.
It must have been the smooth sailing that we lost cautious of where we were stepping, we realized after a roof had collapsed under us making us all fall inside the house and made a lot of noises that attracted the invaders. From the house we were in all the way to the forest, the roofs were damaged and some houses had no roof at all. The kids also made noises with the their screaming while falling, I understood them and did not blame them for it.