Leo and Cassandra went shopping until nightfall. Realizing that it was already dark, they went straight towards a nearby restaurant to eat their dinner. Afterwards, they immediately came to the branch of Sword and Magic of the Blacksmoke city to meet up with Claude and the others just like what was said to them.

Arriving at Sword and Magic, Claude along with some soldiers was currently standing outside as if waiting for someone. His face was also incredibly ugly at this moment.

"Hey Claude, what happened?" Leo asked immediately as soon as he approached Claude.

"Dandelion is currently missing!" Claude immediately stated the reason behind his ugly expression.

"What?! Did the search already start? When did they last saw her? When did she suddenly disappear?" Cassandra quickly started asking after finding out that Dandelion was actually missing.

"Yes, we had already started searching! David, Hannah, and Ban have already started looking for her. I have also already ordered the other soldiers and mercenaries that came along with us to help, too. It was this afternoon when we noticed that she didn't stay within the group, so we thought she just went shopping alone. However, Hannah, when she was currently walking around the place, suddenly found out her things measly scattered nearby a blacksmithing shop. She immediately realized that something bad had happened to her right after. So, at this moment, we are only speculating the worst possible situation, she's been kidnapped by someone ..." Claude said giving them a general idea of what had happened after Leo and Cassandra went to their shopping.

Leo quietly wore a serious expression after hearing what Claude had said.

"Did they search in teams?" Leo suddenly asked.

"No..." Claude said, but suddenly he stopped as he realized something.

"Fuck, why didn't I realize such a problem!" Claude cursed out loud before turning around, wanting to ask someone to remind everyone to move in teams.

Moving alone was such a dangerous thing to do now, since they still didn't know what the kidnapper's intention was. Claude really can't believe that he had actually forgotten about such an important thing to do in this sort of situation.

"Wait, don't report it yet! I feel like there is someone working for those kidnappers within our group." Leo said quickly, stopping Claude from informing the others.

"What do we do, then?" Claude asked, feeling helpless at the current situation. Although he was a Mage and from one of the five major Noble Households too, it still doesn't mean that he has knowledge and experience in every kind of situation. In fact, he hasn't even yet experience things like this before because he had forgotten such an important detail of moving in groups to search around.

"Did you assign them to a specific area to search?" Leo motioned Claude to come closer before asking.

"Yes!" Claude replied as he took out a map and showing it in front of Leo, "David is searching to the north of the smithing shop where Dandelions things were found, Hannah to the west, Ban to the east, and the other soldiers spread to the south."

Leo quietly paused for a moment, thinking of an idea. After a few seconds, he suddenly went to grab the map from Claude's hand as he said silently to the latter, "You go and looked for David, while those others looked for Ban. I and Cassandra will look for Hannah, and let's gather afterward to look for Dandelion together afterward. By the way, specifically don't tell anyone the reason why we are looking for them..." He quickly explained his plan.

After Leo finished explaining, Claude nodded his head as he called out to the others who were waiting with him at the side. After telling them about the new plan that they will go look for Ban, they then swiftly departed the place.

Leo and Cassandra also followed behind, since it's much easier to get to the smithing shop that Dandelion had gone missing at by simply following them.

Soon, all of them finally arrived at the smithing shop where Dandelion was suspected to be kidnapped. Claude nodded his head towards Leo before moving to the north. The other with them also moved to the east, while lastly, he along with Cassandra moved to the west.

Running around to the west, Leo and Cassandra immediately spotted Hannah, who was currently being chased by a bunch of people in a tight black outfit. He immediately took out his bow as he began shooting those people pursuing behind her.

Soon after, with the assistance of Hannah's spell, Cassandra, and his bow and arrow, they had finally killed everyone.

"Thank you!" Hannah said while still trying to catch her breath.

"What happened?" Leo calmly asked the panting Hannah.

"While I was looking around, I was suddenly surrounded by a group of people. I immediately realized that these people were with those people who had kidnapped Dandelion, so I thought of defeating them to ask about the whereabouts of Dandelion. But, there were unexpectedly just too many of them, so I could only helplessly run away while fighting. Finally, though, I realized that I was already starting to get tired, and hence my ability to cast Magic spell slowly became slow. So, I could only helplessly run away from the remaining people..." Hannah explained after finally able to catch her breath.

Leo nodded his head, seemingly getting some sort of clue as to who was behind all of this.

"Let's go look for Claude!" Leo said before going back to where they came from. Hannah was already with them, so they needed to meet up with Claude immediately to proceed with the next step of the plan.

Arriving at the smithing shop from before, Claude along with David was already waiting for them.

Claude immediately nodded his head to Leo before they started moving to the east, where Ban was located at.

Since Ban was still nowhere to be found, then they need to go looking for him to really proceed with the next part of Leo's plan.

As soon as they moved to the east, Leo and the others immediately found a wounded soldier.

Claude immediately went to help the soldier as he went to ask what had happened to him.

"Sir Claude... Ban suddenly attacked us..." The soldier said, obviously struggling due to the injury he had received.

Claude immediately understood that Ban had actually betrayed them. He called out to Hannah as he said, "Take him back to Sword and Magic!"

Hannah nodded her head immediately before she hurriedly carried the injured soldier away.

"I had always thought Ban was up to something no good due to his despicable eyes. Did anyone of you noticed, at that time when we were fighting against those bandits, he, on the other hand, was obviously not really putting much effort to protect our fellow soldiers and mercenaries? He was just letting them suffer and die!" David said, feeling really angered by Ban's betrayal.

"Let's go and find him as fast as possible before his other fellow kidnappers can do any harm to Dandelion!" Claude said as his eyes immediately turned icy cold before running deeper to the east.

Leo, Cassandra, and David immediately followed along.

Along the way, the soldiers that Claude had ordered to look for Ban were currently fighting with some unknown group of people in an open field.

Putting his hand in front, Claude closed his eyes as he began gathering Mana around the air. Soon after, a magic circle made out of Mana that he had gathered suddenly appeared in front of his palm.

"Meteorite Flame!"

Tens of balls made of fire soon after appeared out of thin air. With a wave of Claude's hand, the tens of flaming ball shoot directly towards the unknown group of people.

*Boom! *Boom! *Boom!

Multiple small explosion sounded out the moment the flaming ball hit their target. The people that were hit by the flaming ball were immediately sent flying away, as scorching burned marks appeared where the ball of flame had hit them.

After knocking out most of the unknown people, Leo and the others immediately run towards where they suspected Dandelion was being hidden at.

After running for a while, their group finally found an abandoned warehouse, obviously the hideout of the kidnappers since a lot of kidnappers were specifically protecting this place.

When Leo and the others appeared near the abandoned warehouse, a voice full of pain sounded repeatedly inside. It was Dandelion's voice, and it looks like she was being tutored or the likes...

Leo and the others quickly rushed inside. There were some people that tried to block their path, but they were quickly sent out flying by David's Mana Sword, a basic spell that Mages learned at an early stage.

Arriving inside the warehouse, Leo and the others immediately saw Ban trying to seemingly rape Dandelion, who was currently being tied to a chain.

Dandelion's face at this moment was covered in tears and her eyes were in full despair, too. Her clothes were already destroyed, revealing bluntly her white skin, breast, and some of her lower part of the body.

While massaging Dandelion's breast, Ban suddenly turned around as he realized that he got company around, "Oh, you have finally arrived? Tsk, I thought I could still taste her body. Too bad..." He shook his head as if feeling helpless that Leo and the others had arrived.

"By the way, who was able to find out that it was me?" Ban said as he put back his clothes on. He was really curious how he was immediately found out. He could confidently say that his plan was full proof, there weren't any clues to point to him since he was with them the whole time during and after Dandelion was kidnapped. So, no one should have thought of suspecting him at all.

Ban's plan was indeed so well made. No one would have deduced that it was him in a short amount of time. That time frame alone would have been enough for him to play with Dandelion around and would then allow his men to escape away from the place with her.

However, out of nowhere, Ban suddenly found out that some people were actually looking for him. He really wanted to know how he was found out, and who was that genius that has found out about his bright plan, too.

Leo suddenly let out a short laugh as he said, "You found yourself!"

"What do you mean?" Ban asked, feeling really confused.

"Oh, What I meant to say is, it was you that had pointed yourself as the man behind the kidnapping!" Leo said mockingly as he shook his head.