Year 2, Winter, Third Month, First Week.

When Samia pressed the activator, the MQ energy crystal fixated in the hidden compartment powered the Arrays drawn in the internal part of the coat. Similar to the wind staff, the emergency defense Arrays manifested a large amount of wind around her, launching everyone back.

Samia didn’t hesitate to dash into the forest while the fallen Adventurers tried to understand the situation. The leading Fighter was the first one to recover from the unexpected attack, she stood up and quickly accessed her comrades before running after the fleeing girl. She couldn’t comprehend how the hostage had used a wind attack, she clearly wasn’t a Mage. Even so, the Fighter didn’t let the doubts distract her from the pursuit, she kept pushing all the energy she managed to absorb into her legs to increase her speed.

By the Fighter’s estimation, the girl was ten seconds ahead and she would soon catch up. However, she didn’t know that Samia’s boot was enhanced with a Lightness Rune and the girl was getting further away each second. Actually, if Samia was paired with the woman in a normal situation, it would be difficult to say who would be faster. But in this case, all the Fighter’s accumulated energy had been used to soften the impact of the wind attack, so she could only absorb the energy and power her movements slowly.

After pursuing Samia for ten minutes, the Fighter finally gave up. She couldn’t see the girl’s traces anymore, so anything else would be wildly guessing her position.

***

Samia continued to run until she was sure the Fighter wasn’t following her. It took her almost ten minutes to calm down and start considering her next moves. First, she would need to report the information back to the camp and then find her team. Unfortunately, the magic locator was now in the hands of the adventurer group, so she could only try to find their last position or try returning to the camp. Although she wouldn’t be able to return directly to the camp, she could follow the river until a familiar point near the camp.

A cold breeze passed through Samia making her shiver, she finished sending the signals and started moving fast, the thought of passing the night alone in the cold wasn’t very appealing.

An hour later, she finally gave up on trying to find the others. Now she could return to the camp and pray that her team would do it too, after all, she left them waiting and took the locator, so they wouldn’t be able to find her. With luck, the four or so remaining hours of light would be enough to get her to the familiar point by the river.

Samia always considered herself a lonely person, in fact, moving by herself was almost two times faster than in a team. However, at this moment, she only wished her team was here, less for loneliness and more for calming her guilty conscience. She was silently thanking the Origin for taking the beasts out of her path when she heard something. She instinctively brought her dagger to a defensive position and hid behind a tree. However, when she saw who was approaching, she almost couldn’t repress the uncommon desire to cheer.

“Lew…”

The Fighter breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the girl.

“I finally located you… Every time I used the locator you had changed positions, it took me five readings to realize you were running in this direction… Where are the others?”

Samia's happy expression instantly returned to her usual gloomy one.

“They… I was caught by the enemy, but I managed to escape. They have my locator, but not the crystals. The others are probably waiting or looking for me, but I couldn’t locate them, so I was returning to the camp…”

The ability of the girl to synthesize so many unfortunate events and important information, made Lew react in an exaggerated panicked manner, but he soon regained his posture and asked:

“Karl gave me the Array to locate your lightning crystal and metal, should we try to use it to locate them? Do you know in which direction the Adventurers are? Their metal should also appear in the search…”

“I think so… Let’s use the locator and see what we can find.”

One minute after sending the searching waves, the reader indicated one target to the north then, some seconds later a target towards the south. Samia explained the south target should be the Adventures since they were closer to the river, so they decided to go north and use the tool again in a few minutes.

Samia took this time to tell Lew about what happened. Again, he was extremely surprised by the girl’s actions and ability to run from such a group. However, another thing caught his attention. Besides not being the Kingdom’s forces, the group could be willing to cooperate. Their encounter with the girl was a little rough but the wind attack shouldn’t have hurt anyone or create bad blood, after all, he also attacked by it and now he was even one of them.

In the end, she agreed with him. At least, they should try establishing relations with a group that had access to the Kingdom, not as escapees but as a Tribe that lived in the Forest. Even though they decided to try having a conversation with the Adventurers, they would need to change the background this time, not being taken as a hostage was a must.

After finding the scared and panicking hunters, and explaining the events that led to Samia’s three hours disappearance, the group went after the Adventurers. The plan was for Lew to approach them, at a safe distance, while Samia and the two other hunters covered for him. In the worst case, they would run in retreat and count on the group’s hesitation into following them to a possible trap.

Unsurprisingly, the Adventurers had moved their camp to another location, almost one kilometer to the east. Fortunately, they hadn’t left the locator’s reach and took only an hour to find them. As agreed, Lew started to move towards them without hiding his presence.

“Stop right there, who are you?”

Using only a coat and shabby garments, made Lew feel a little uncomfortable, but he had to keep the Tribal act.

“I’m Lew from AK Tribe, I came to discuss cooperation… My fellow tribeswoman said you might be interested…”

The line of Fighters, tightly holding their weapons, looked even more aggressive after hearing him. However, the leading Fighter and Mages looked very surprised. After exchanging some words, they answered:

“What kind of cooperation?”

Lew tried to give them his friendliest smile before saying.

“One with mutual benefits…”