Chapter 13.

Denburg succeeded in escaping the forest.

When the pursuit squad returned to the village later, Hestia tried to find out what had allowed Denburg to escape. Although she was told that he had sent a fake letter to Gawain to thin out the encirclement, there were two factors that she couldn't understand. First, how did he know where the third warrior division was located, and second, how did he arrive at the edge of the encirclement faster than she had anticipated?

The answer was in the stack of messages that had been exchanged between the pursuit team and headquarters. Denburg had taken advantage of the fact that Hestia and the pursuit squad had been using messenger hawks to exchange information. He had intercepted some of the messages after he had crossed the rift and when the encirclement was beginning to take shape.

This meant that he had been aware of her plan and strategy all along.

Since when had he known? Since when did Denburg have the opportunity to intercept messenger hawks?

After pondering for a while, she arrived at the answer.

After he had crossed the rift, she had moved her forces in a particular way to force him to move in a certain direction, towards the seventh campsite. Only then had she assembled the entire pursuit squad at the seventh campsite.

That was the only time when Denburg had the opportunity to see her messages. Because unlike before, at that point in time, even if he had known of her plan and intention, he would have had no choice but to move according to her plan. Besides, the direction she had planned out had corresponded with the path that he had to take to leave the forest in the shortest period of time.

Denburg had gradually changed the lines on the map Hestia had sent to the outskirts of the forest and had included locations where it was difficult to position troops. The maps he changed never reached her because the pursuit team had to read the maps she sent.

When he had realized this crucial point, rather than killing the messenger hawk that would arouse her attention, he had decided to use it to his advantage. As such, he paved an escape route for himself by moving according to her plan.

All this time, the pursuit team had been following Denburg's orders, not Hestias. Of course, since he couldn't copy her handwriting, the only things he could touch were points or lines drawn on the map. Nonetheless, by using the map, he thinned out a section in the encirclement and penetrated it by confusing the pursuers with false messages.