Diu Ni Leimu, who deeply sympathized with Chris, finally got everything settled within the allotted time and "coaxed" the Holy Crusade Army out of Bagnia's territory, setting off toward Suvano Region, the coastal region within the Minicia Kingdom.
Not long after leaving, the Holy Crusade Army encountered an obstruction from the Minisians, but it was one no one had expected.
A tide of refugees.
Mounted on a tall horse by the roadside, Diu Ni Leimu stared at the muddy dirt road ahead, his mouth agape and disbelief written across his face.
Before him stretched an endless stream of Minisian civilians, men and women, young and old, bringing their entire families. They pushed creaking wheelbarrows, carried bulging bundles on their backs, and some held nothing but crying infants in their arms. At a steady, slow pace, they poured toward Bagnia, which the Holy Crusade Army had just left.
Everywhere Diu Ni Leimu looked, every face bore exhaustion, terror, and an almost numb desire to survive.
This tide of refugees collided head-on with the Holy Crusade Army's vanguard.
Vast, silent, and steeped in despair, the tide struck the Holy Crusade Army's vanguard's orderly ranks like a thick mudslide.
The expected collisions, cries, and shoving never came. Instead, something stranger and more suffocating unfolded.
When the dull eyes of the refugees at the front fell upon the gleaming armor and fluttering Double-Headed Eagle and gear banners, they said nothing. They remained silent, with only the wet squelch of wheels rolling through mud and their labored, subdued breathing echoing around them.
Then, a moment later, Diu Ni Leimu saw the silent flood begin to divide.
There were no instructions, no shouts, only an almost instinctive understanding honed through countless escapes.
Almost unconsciously, the refugees at the front desperately crowded onto the muddy field ridges