The Divine Wolf... or?

As Sharon was petting Mado, Ark was feeling a little worried about Ephine and Edward. They had been gone for a few hours and still hadn't returned. Although he didn't think that anything would happen to her, he couldn't help but be a little worried. Ephine was very strong, that much was true. But she was far from invincible, and plenty of humans had similar or stronger strength than her.

Whilst Ark felt a little worried, John, Atar and Cecily ran over curiously. They didn't know where the cat had suddenly shown up from, but neither John nor Cecily cared as they curiously sized it up. Atar was feeling a different feeling, wariness. The others couldn't sense it because they were too weak, but Atar could feel that this cute cat had a deep strength hidden within.

After a questioning glance at Ark, Atar calmed down after seeing him nod with a smile.

If his papa had brought it back then there was nothing to worry about. Ark felt his worries lessen a little as he looked at the children having fun, but he couldn't completely relax knowing that Ephine was somewhere in Moonhill with no one to back her up.

He would've felt a bit better if Atar or Mado had been with her since he knew that they were strong enough to help her, but Edward was a different story. He was just a regular human with no strength to speak of. If anything happened, he would probably even be a burden.

Trying to not think too much about it, Ark sat down and started preparing some food. He would trust that Ephine could take care of herself, and if she truly needed his help, he would find out one way or another. Both Ephine, Atar and Thufrat had some safety-related items that Ark had created.

With them, they could protect themselves, as well as send out a distress signal to Ark with their spatial coordinates. With these coordinates, Ark could easily pinpoint their exact location, but if his spatial magic became a little more stable, then he would be able to open up a rift in space that led him directly to them.

Whilst he prepared the food, Ark decided to tell the children an interesting story that he had once heard as a child. It was a story of a woman named Kitta Grau who managed to beat the devil himself at his own work. She could do both good and bad; an interesting story of how a woman used her wits to both help and hamper the devil.

As a child, he realised that one could use their power to do both good and bad and that the choice was ultimately up to oneself.

Maybe the children wouldn't get the point of the story, Ark didn't even know himself if that was the point of the story, but they found it interesting nonetheless. After he finished his story, the food was ready, and they all ate together. Whilst this was going on, Ephine was busily following around Elise and Tony as they made all kinds of arrangements.

Since they had decided to follow along, they wanted to help in any way they could.

They both knew plenty of families that didn't want to stick around but had no other choice in the matter. So after going around and asking people to listen to what they had to say, another three families had agreed to come with them. Among these three families, there were two people adept at farming, an architect and a construction worker.

The other two adults only worked miscellaneous jobs that wouldn't be very useful in a village, so they would have to do something else.

After making sure that everyone had packed their most important belongings, the only thing left to do was leave the city. Although there were plenty of people on guard to make sure that people didn't leave, Ephine wasn't very worried about it. With this number of people, she could easily support them to fly away using wind magic.

Although it would drain most of her mana, she wasn't exactly far away from Ark and the camp, so she wasn't very worried about it.

The people on guard would probably not chase them very far anyways, since it was pretty much a wasted effort. Before they left, Ephine told them her plan to make sure that everyone was on board with it. Although some of the adults were a little frightened at the prospect of flying, the children were mostly excited.

To be able to soar through the sky was something that many people yearned for, especially children.

As they all walked in a pretty large group, they drew some attention as they walked the streets. People were mostly hiding in their homes, so to see a large group of people walking on the street was very uncommon. After realising that they were headed towards the city gate, some curious people started to follow them from afar.

It seemed like they were going to try and leave the city, and some people who wanted to do the same naturally came to watch how the guards at the gate would react.

Although many people had already tried to leave and had been stopped, some people still held some hopes. Maybe if enough people gathered, they would let them through? After walking through the streets for a while, they soon arrived at the city gate, and the guards there looked at them with strange expressions.

Most of these guards didn't want to stop people from leaving, but at the same time, they had orders to follow.

Seeing so many people at once, the guards could feel a headache coming, and one of them ran off to report the situation to a superior. They had a feeling that this was going to get out of hand.

"Hey, stop right there, don't come any closer!"

One of the guards shouted at them, but they didn't stop walking. They put their full faith in Ephine and her abilities, this was their chance to leave this horrible city after all. The guards started panicking a little when they didn't stop, as this meant that they would have to use force against normal citizens.

"If you come any closer we are gonna have to use force! Is that what you want?"

One of the more experienced guards shouted with an imposing voice, but no one listened to him. They just kept walking. The guards stood in formation with their spearheads pointing at the approaching group of civilians, their hands slightly shaking. Killing an enemy or a demon on the battlefield is one thing, but to turn their weapons on civilians? Is that something they really wanted to do?

Some of the guards hesitated and wanted to put their weapons down, this wasn't what they signed up for. But before they could make a choice, Ephine raised her hand. With a slight twirl of her fingers, a huge gust of wind swept the guards away.

"Now! Run!"

Before the crowd could get a proper chance to react, Ephine and her new companions started running. Leaving Moonhill and the memories they had made there behind.