Chapter 19: The sleeping knights
Nobody noticed him. And nobody was paying any attention to him since he was with Rose. Everybody watched from a distance as Rose hammed her melody with a smile on her face and her eyes shut a bit.
Mathew moved away from her because he couldn’t stand her delusions that Hajime was her little brother. He stood by a giant tree with leaves like clouds that cover the heavens. Its branches are like thorns, and its bark is like the back of a snapping alligator. But with the appearance of the tree, it wasn’t a threat to anyone standing near it or touching it.
Of course. Mathew was touching the tree with his bare hands. In his eyes, the tree was just another huge tree that needed to be trimmed down for wood.
From a distance, not far from where the tree was, Xou was sneaking around some carriages which the imperial soldiers or knights brought with them to carry the people they’ve captured in.
He was looking for Hajime to see if he might be in one of them.
Most of the carriages were filled with wood, and these carriages looked old, like they had just been sitting around in the rain for years without anyone mending them. These carriages were at the end of the other carriages, which looked like they were used to transport animals.
Even though Xou hadn’t found anyone in the back carriages. He continued to move forward, still searching.
He climbed a tree while his focus was still on the carriages and jumped on top of one of them. The moment he made contact with the roof of the carriage, his landing produced a loud, crushing sound.
"Huh?"
The sound grabbed the attention of one of the knights who was nearby this carriage.
He turned to check on what had produced the sound with his guard up and looking around to see if maybe the thing that produced the sound was moving around.