Escape Plan

Although he had already drawn up a plan, imagination is, in the end, entirely different from reality. There are a number of innumerable factors which could interfere with the plan.

'First things first, I have to find my father. Though those assassins are probably already close, or probably even watching his dad.'

As the steps to take appeared in his head, his eyes began to shine with a radiant fire as though he'd found the right path.

"I'm not a protagonist, so I should stop thinking like one. However, I'm not an antagonist either. In this case, I could probably be considered only a support character or maybe even, cannon fodder?"

Shaking the idea out of his head, he didn't dare to imagine that he was cannon fodder, because that would mean that his death was simply a stepping stone for the real protagonist to rise.

And he wholeheartedly refused to die, especially if the protagonist was going to be someone like Rizei. Thinking about that bastard made his anger flare up, however, he had to calm himself.

"Irrationally thinking of taking revenge is what those protagonists always do. If I think like that, I could be making Rizei into an antagonist, even if that role seems fitting for him, I cannot be entirely sure that this is one of those novels where the protagonist loses his family to the antagonist in his quest for power."

Deducing every possible path to take based on the novels and manhwa he had read was an absurd situation, yet here he was, sitting in an underground cave and planning a path with the least losses to his escape.

"At this point, I can't bother to care about the village. Since they gave up on me and my dad, the assassins must have some preliminary knowledge of that too."

"If they have that knowledge, the. they'll know that luring me out with the villagers is useless. However, they probably won't anticipate that I already might have thought of that option and will be using this as a point to ambush me."

"Maybe I can use that to my advantage."

As the rough outline of the first step in his plan took place, Aryan's frown deepened as he realized he had forgotten about something.

"I seem to have forgotten something important. What could it be?"

Recalling everything that happened right before he fell asleep in a reverse order, it hit him.

"Before I fell asleep, I rushed into the underground cave after using the snakes to trick them."

"That's right! Snakes...the beast lure!"

Realizing that his thinking was flawed before, Aryan smiled helplessly to himself.

"Even though they might have optimized the powder for maximum performance time, they're not really aiming to kill everyone on the island."

"Even that would be too hard to suppress for them Thus, they'll be aiming for a time not too long, in the event they require plan B; to lure me with my father."

"Not considering a lot of things, three hours is too long for them. Maybe an hour or an hour, thirty minutes at most."

"After all, if a beast stampede goes on for three hours, even the capital would be alerted, much less the people on the shore of the mainland."

"I can't dilly-dally any longer."

Sliding the rock aside, he slipped out of the cave and into a large pile of fallen leaves. Laying there, he reduced his breath and tried to focus his presence on everything else.

For a while, he lay there in silence, only accompanied by the soft slithering and hissing sounds the snakes made when they came near him.

However, as he lay still with his breathing reduced to its lowest, the snakes hardly seemed to notice him.

'I must be blessed today.'

Quietly slipping out from underneath the leaves, he crawled away on his belly. Slowly, the edge of the forest was coming into view.

'Just a few meters away...'

Unfortunately, just as he was nearing the dividing line between death and life, footsteps began to approach the forest.

Of course, they weren't so much as footsteps as they were people on tiptoes. However, the sounds of their feet touching the sand was heard clear as day to him.

It was as though all the sounds had faded and only their footsteps were left.

'So much for assassins. They can't even hide their footsteps.'

Although he didn't understand this new ability, he didn't worry about it either.

'Now isn't the time to worry about this. Let's get away from here first.'

Soon the voices of the assassins drifted into his ears.

"Spread put over the forest. As long as you get the information out, he'll definitely come."

Soon, the voices and footsteps disappeared and Aryan didn't need to think to know that they were probably going to spread some information about his dad to lure him out.

'Shit! I'm too late! They already have dad. I have to get out of here first then I'll make a new plan.'

However, just as this thought made its way into his head, slithering sounds appeared at the bases of the trees. The snakes began to coil and rest at the base of the trees forcing Aryan to hid in a ditch underneath some tree roots.

Holding his breath, Aryan listened for the snakes, realizing the sounds we're not getting closer nor were they getting farther.

Deciding to take the risk, he burrowed into the mud beneath him and crawled away from the trees. Finally coming up for air outside the forest, he broke into a sprint, heading for the village, not forgetting to hide from the assassins who were seeking him out.

By this time, the beast horde had almost arrived at the village. The village itself was in chaos as its leaders were worrying about the imminent peril.

"Chief, what do we do?"

"We might have to move away or else we'll be crushed by the beasts."

"But Chief, where will me move to?"

"Yeah! There aren't that many safe places on the island."

"We can still move towards the western end, we'll just have to be careful of the treacherous terrain."

"Are you telling us to sacrifice our lives and lives of our children, just because you want to switch locations?"

"Our lives will be meaningless either way. We either take the risk and have some of us survive or wait here and none of us make it."

"Even so, the children..."

"Those beasts will not pity the children. We have to do something."

With the threat of death looming over their heads like a gray cloud, the elders were all faced with a terrible decision.