The Moonrise Kingdom was among the mid-sized kingdoms of the Triana Continent, so just a day and a half worth of journey brought Aegon and Xavier to the borders of the Moonrise Kingdom.
Aegon wondered if he would encounter more exciting things along the way, but the journey remained uneventful. Though it was mostly because they were in a rush.
They only stopped in towns or cities to sleep and rest during the night; otherwise, the journey was very peaceful.
It didn’t mean Aegon was bored, though.
In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off the beauty of the world and enjoyed every single second of his journey. He even wanted to go out at night to see the Creatures of Darkness, but was stopped by Xavier.
That was how they continued to travel, passing by one more neighboring kingdom before finally reaching close to the borders of the Great Solar Empire.
Jason suddenly stopped the carriage, alerting Xavier and Aegon. Then, he spoke, "Boss, there’s a minor problem ahead, so can I go and solve it?"
Aegon jumped out of the carriage along with Xavier as they stared at the so-called problem—which turned out to be a small group of people, or rather, chained people.
A few other men in brown armor were using whips against the bare bodies of those chained people to push them forward as the people protested.
Xavier narrowed his eyes and spoke, "Seems like we’ve seen enough beauty, so the world wants to balance it out."
Although Aegon could already guess the situation, he still asked, "Hecte, go and find out what’s happening here."
"You’re not saving them?" Xavier was surprised, but then he shrugged and said, "Whatever. I was planning to do it myself anyway."
"They could be criminals," Aegon answered, stopping Xavier in his tracks. "Don’t always judge everything by appearance."
He wanted to make a joke about his own appearance, but the situation made him forget it. He didn’t like what he was seeing, but he still didn’t want to judge everything based on appearances.
"Could be, but I’d rather take the risk of saving a criminal than let someone innocent suffer so much," Xavier snorted, clearly displeased by Aegon’s behavior, and ran off.
Aegon was left staring at his silhouette, his thoughts still stuck on Xavier’s words. ’But that also means you could let loose a criminal who might take even more lives. Am I wrong?’
It was a magical world, and a criminal could mean a powerful being being released. They could massacre so many people.
He raised his head and looked at the people being pushed across a bridge built over a long, wide canyon. Every one of them looked healthy, and Aegon knew criminals were also treated sometimes.
That was the reason he wanted to wait first, to know whether their guess was right or wrong. But his friend had a different thought.
Then, he ran after Xavier because he still wanted to help him.
He stopped upon hearing Jason’s words and turned back to look at him. The disguised old man smiled at him and said, "You need to make your own choices and decisions. And you have a time limit for them too."
Aegon was confused, but Jason didn’t seem to be in the mood to elaborate as he asked instead, "Want me to clear them out for you?"
His eyes once again found that group of people whose bare backs were turning red under the whips, and they trembled slightly. He still had conflicting thoughts, so he said, "Let Xavier handle it." Google seaʀᴄh 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✶𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✶𝕟𝕖𝕥
Meanwhile, Xavier had already reached the bridge and easily caught the whip of a knight just as he was about to swing it. His grip was tight, his eyes burning like a raging volcano ready to erupt.
"Huh? Who are you, boy?" the knight grunted and tried to jerk back the whip, but Xavier let go of it at the same time, causing the whip to change trajectory and strike another knight.
"Dogshit! What are you doing, Karbo?" the other knight hissed as the whip landed on his unarmed hands.
The commotion finally alerted the others too, as they stopped and turned toward them, especially the captured people, whose eyes finally shone with a glimmer of hope.
Karbo, the first knight, finally turned toward Xavier and took a step forward. His face contorted into an ugly expression. His size easily dwarfed Xavier’s, but the young man didn’t even flinch.
"I don’t care which deep-shit hole you crawled out of, but I’d suggest getting the fuck off before I turn your limpy body into a rope," Karbo growled as he raised his hand to choke Xavier.
Anyone with a sane mind could see that Xavier wasn’t a knight, and if he was a mage, then his biggest mistake was getting too close to a knight.
Just as Karbo’s hand was about to land on Xavier’s neck, a calm and composed voice sounded from behind Xavier.
"Moving around is prohibited in this area."
In the next second, Karbo’s movements froze, his eyes widening in shock and fear. He tried to release himself from this strange magic, but he was completely helpless.
But he wasn’t alone in this.
Every single knight in the area felt their bodies stiffen before going completely still. They couldn’t even move their eyes. All they could do was stand frozen in their positions, praying to their gods.
The effect also included the chained people, who froze on the spot as even a thin layer of ice even formed under them, freezing their feet.
Seeing everything that happened in just over a second, Xavier smiled and turned around. His eyes met Aegon’s, who was averting his gaze, and he asked, "I thought you wanted to wait."
"Well, I did want to leave this to you," Aegon admitted. "But you can’t do this. So let me do it."
"But I can do that. You know that too," Xavier said in confusion.
"You can’t. Trust me on this," Aegon said, his voice firm. "Now then, what do we have here?"
His eyes scanned the chained people first, and he easily recognized the despair in them. Then, he turned toward the knights and said, his voice echoing through the canyon,
"Won’t you come out?"